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CORNELL 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 




THIS BOOK IS ONE OF 
A COLLECTION MADE BY 

BENNO LOEWY 

1854-1919 

AND BEQUEATHED TO 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



Cornell University Library 
Z5777 .P41 
My cQpMy...books,,.by.„Elizabeth ,„Robins Pe 




3 1924 032 313 375 
olin 



3f2 



^^1 



Cornell University 
Library 



The original of this book is in 
the Cornell University Library. 

There are no known copyright restrictions in 
the United States on the use of the text. 



http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032313375 



MY COOKERY BOOKS 



MY COOKERY 



BOOKS 



BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL 




BOSTON AISTD NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

MDCCCCIII 



Copyright 190S by Houghton, Mifflin and Company 
All rights reserved 



INTRODUCTION 



jLT is not given to every one to he a collector of fine 
hooTcs and rare first editions. The pi^izes are reserved 
for the millionaire. But the most modest bibliophile, by 
the pursuit of one special subject, may get together a col- 
lection valuable for other reasons. I do not hnow that I 
deserve so ambitious a name as bibliophile, but I have no 
doubt as to the value of the collection of cooTcery booTcs 
about which it has been my pleasure and privilege to 
write. I admit that to the moneyed booh-hunter, though 
he would envy me a few of my volumes, a great num- 
ber, from his point of view, might seem poor trash. JVbr 
do I claim for my collection completeness. I would not 
be so foolish with those two thousand five hundred entries 
in M. Vicaire's Bibliography forever haunting me as a 
reproach. But then, M. Vicaire does not own the two 
thousand five hundred booTcs, and I very much doubt 
whether any one individual ever will. The collector is 
but mortal. All I claim is that my collection has grown 
to respectable and, I believe, unrivaled proportions, and 



VI 



that the number of looks in it, and the countries and cen- 
turies they represent lend them as a series the importance 
which it would he absurd to attribute to each talcen sepa- 
rately. 

As for the subject, mine first by chance and now by pre- 
ference, it needs no apology. Everybody eats and every- 
body should enjoy eating. The old asceticism that held 
pleasure in food to be gluttony, and consequently one of 
the seven deadly sins, has all but disappeared. Even 
Woman has thrown off the traditional shacTcles and is 
no longer ashamed of an honest appetite. It is too late 
now for the novelist, however romantic, to carry her 
through the serious crisis of her life, with Fielding's 
Sophia, on " a little sacTc-whey made very small and 
thin.''' The new generation believes with Brillat-Savarin 
that love of good living is by no means a blemish in 
woman, though, perhaps, as yet, not every one would go 
to his lengths and believe that a pretty woman is never 
prettier than when at table. In one way, something of 
the old prejudice lingers. It is still considered demoral- 
izing, or, at least, " bad form " to think much ahaut food 
and drink. But this is a mistake. It was when men and 
women began to think about eating that they developed it 



Vll 



into the Fine Art it ought to be. Sounds might have re- 
mained mere noise hut for the musician, colors mere 
discord hut for the painter ; eating would never have 
been more than a gross necessity but for the gourmet. 
" 11 faut manger avec esprit" says a French authority, 
and to do so requires the thought and enthusiasm that the 
musician or painter gives to his art. 
Neither does the study of Gastronomy through the ages 
call for an explanation. " Tell me what you eat, and 
I will tell you what you are''' is the fourth in Brillat- 
Savarin's list of Fundamental Truths. It would be 
more to the purpose to explain why the historian and 
the philosopher have hitherto paid so little heed to the 
subject. The world still waits for the Carlyle who will 
write for it a Philosophy of Food. When he comes 
he will find in my collection the material made to his 
hand. 

But if eating were not an art, if food had not its philo- 
sophy, my books would still be amusing, and that is their 
great recommendation. No black-letter man, vmr tall 
copyist, nor uncut man, nor rough-edge man, nor early 
English dramatist, nor Elzevirian, nor broadsider, nor 
pasquinader, nor old brown calf man, nor Cfrangerite, 



vm 



nor tawny moroccoite, nor gilt t(ypper, nor marhled in- 
sider, nor editio princeps man, to borrow Dr. Hill Bur- 
ton! s classification, could get as much genuine amusement 
out of his hooTcs as I do out of mine. Now this amuse- 
ment, for several reasons, either dwindles, or else changes 
its character so completely, hy the end of the eighteenth 
century that I have brought the story of my books and 
the bibliography down to no later date. In the nineteenth 
century there were, on the one hand, the cookery boohs, 
prosaic as primers, that, with their business-like, practi- 
cal, direct methods, were more useful in the kitchen than 
entertaining in the library; on the other hand, the books 
about cookery, so literary in flavor that they were not 
adapted to the kitchen at all. The new writers, of whom 
Orimod de la Beyniere was the flrst great master, 
brought about such a revolution in not only the style, 
but the very attitude of writers on cookery, that I pi^efer 
to consider their work by itself My study of all these 
books has made me sufficiently an artist to want to see 
my own volume as perfectly rounded out. It is my re- 
spect for them that shows me the folly of dogmatizing 
upon the many I do not know at first hand. In the fol- 
lowing pages, I do not pretend to rival M. Vicaire or 



IX 



Mr. Hazlitt biUiographically. I have not the temerity 
to wander further afield thayi my own collection. 
The illustrations speaTc for themselves. The old title- 
page always has charm, and, in the cooTcery book, it has 
besides a character of its own. It served the author the 
purpose of the modern tradesman's poster or advertise- 
ment until, at times, it seems as if his one object had been 
to sum up upon it the entire contents of his booh. The 
portraits that appear as frontispieces are, to me, an end- 
less source of delight. Wliat new dignity a cooTcery booTc 
acquires when a queen or a man of title presides over it! 
And with what increased deference one reads the receipts 
of the chef who evidently takes himself as seriously and 
solemnly as Robert May or E. Kidder! I wish I could 
give all the portraits. But it would be unfair to my col- 
lection if I did not also show some of the amazing allego- 
ries which occasionally replaced the portrait as frontis- 
piece, and of wMch the plates from Les Dons de Gomus 
and Dr. Lister''s edition of Apicius Coelius are typical 
examples. There are, moreover, the illustrations in the 
text. I should like nothing better than to include the com- 
plete series of plates from ScappPs book, for nowhere 
else that I know of is there so interesting and full an invent 



tory of the TcitcJien as it was in sixteenth century Italy. 
The models for the carver, whether of fish, fowl, or fruit, 
are characteristic, and the one design for setting a table 
harely does justice to a detail of dining, that, for long, 
pre-occupied the authorities. The eighteenth century books 
are full of such plates. 

It is impossible, however, to exhaust a collection like 
mine in a single volume. I can only hope that what il- 
lustrations there are, together with my praise, all too 
feeble, of the irresistible text, will send the curious to the 
originals. Though, in self-defense, it might be wiser to 
restrain the ardor of the enthusiast until a few of the 
more glaring gaps on my shelves have been filled. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

COLOPHON : COELIUS APIOIUS, 1498 . . Opposite page 6 

TITLE : THE COMPLEAT COOK, 1655 .... 14 

TITLE : THE QUEEN'S CLOSET OPENED, 1655 . . 16 

POETEAIT OE ROBERT MAT 26 

TITLE : FOURTH EDITION OP MRS. GLASSE'S ART OP 

COOKERY, 1761 42 

TITLE : A COLLECTION OP ABOVE THREE HUNDRED 

RECEIPTS, ETC., 1719 58 

PRONTISPIECE : lister's COELIUS APIOIUS, 1709 . 68 

TITLE : PIRST EDITION OP COELIUS APIOIUS . . 76 
TITLE : LA SINGOLARE DOTTRINA DI M. DOMENICO 

ROMOLI, 1560 82 

BANQUET OP CARDINALS : SCAPPl'S OPERA, 1570 . 84 

THE VATICAN KITCHEN : SCAPPl'S OPERA, 1570 . 88 

PRONTISPIECE : LES DONS DE COMUS, 1758 . . 92 

PLATE PROM LB GRAND EOUTER TRANCHANT . 96 



Xll 
TITLE : NUEVO AETB DE COCniTA, 1760 . . .106 

TITLE : DE RE CIBAEIA, 1560 . . . . .112 

KITCHEN UTENSILS, ETC. : SCAPPl'S OPERA, 1570 . 114 
TITLE : LA VAEENlSrE'S CUISINIER ERAISrCOIS, 1656 . 120 
TEAPOTS : LE BON USAGE DU THE, ETC., 1687 . . 122 

TITLE : l'aRT DE CONSBEVER SA SANTE, 1753 . 126 

TITLE : LA CUISINIEEE BOURGEOISE, 1777 . . 128 

TITLE : GERVASE MAEE^IAM'S ENGLISH HOUSEWIEE, 

1631 132 

FRONTISPIECE : THE QUEEN'S CLOSET, 1668 . . 136 
PORTRAIT OP SIE KENELM DIGBT . . . .138 
PLAN OF THE TABLE : COMPLEAT CITY AND COUN- 
TRY COOK, 1732 148 

PORTRAIT OP EDWARD KIDDER . . . .150 

TITLE : FIRST EDITION OF MES. GLASSE'S AET OF 

COOKERY, 1747 154 

"WOOD ENGEAVESTG BY JOHN BEWICK FEOM THE 

HONOUES OF THE TABLE, 1788 . . . .162 
TITLE : AETE DE COCINA, ETC 168 



MY COOKERY BOOKS 



MY 

COOKEKY BOOKS 



Xt was with something of a shock that I woke one morn- 
ing and foimd myself a collector of cookery books. I 
am not sure which seemed the more extraordinary, — 
that there should be cookery books to collect, or that I 
should be collecting them. I had thought — if indeed I 
had thought anything about it — that Mrs. Rorer and 
CasseU's Dictionary exhausted the literature of the sub- 
ject, though I had heard of Mrs. Glasse : partly because 
the " First catch your hare," which she never wrote, long 
since passed into a classical quotation ; and partly because, 
when I first came to London, George Augustus Sala was 
still writing the newspaper notes he could rarely finish 
without a reference to " good old Hannah Glasse." How- 
ever, had I known then, as I do now, that cookery books 
are almost as old as time, my principles — and my purse 
— were against collecting anything, especially in Lon- 



2 

don, where it adds seriously to the burden of cleanliness. 
But who does go about it dehberately? Mr. Andrew 
Lang calls collecting a sport; Dr. Hill Burton defines it 
first as a " human frailty," then as a " pecuKar malady," 
which is the definition I accept. Certainly I can trace my 
attack to its deadly germ. 

I had undertaken, in an ambitious moment, to write a 
weekly column on cookery for the Pall Mall Gazette, 
when my only quahfications were the healthy appetite 
and the honest love of a good dinner usually considered 
" unbecoming to the sex." To save me from exposure, a 
friend gave me Dumas' Dictionnaire de la Cuisine, the 
masterpiece of that "great artist in many varieties of 
form," to quote Mr. Henley, as it is appropriate I should, 
since he was the friend who came so nobly to my aid. 
The book was useful beyond expectation. I borrowed 
from its pages as lavishly as Dumas had, in compiling it, 
helped himself from the dishes and menus of Beauvilliers 
and Yuillemot. The danger was that I might borrow 
once too often for the patience of my readers; and so, 
chancing presently on the uniformly bound works of 
Careme,Etienne,and Gouffe in a second-hand bookshop, 
I bought them, vdthout stopping to ask if they were first 



8 

editions, — as they were not, — so far was the idea of 
collecting still from my mind. My one object was good 
" copy." But booksellers always manage to know you 
are collecting before you know it yourself. Catalogues 
poured in upon me, and I kept on buying all the cook- 
ery books that promised to be of use. Gradually they 
spread out into an imposing row on my desk ; they over- 
flowed to the bookshelves ; they piled themselves up in 
odd corners ; they penetrated into the linen closet, — 
the last place, I admit, the neat housekeeper should 
look for them. And yet, it was not until the summer 
when I went without a new gown, and carried off at 
Sotheby's, from the clutches of the dealer and the maw 
of the librarian, one of the few first editions of " good 
old Hannah Glasse " — the very copy from which Sala 
made hundreds of articles — for fifty dollars, and bought 
a bookcase for I do not remember how many more, 
that I realized what had happened, and then it was too 
late. 

Anyhow, my sin has not been the " unlit lamp and the 
ungirt loin." If it be a mistake to collect, at least I 
have collected so well that I have yet to find the col- 
lection of cookery books that can equal mine. It may 



4 

be put to shame when I consult M. Georges Yicaire's 
Bibliographie Gastronomique, with its twenty-five hun- 
dred entries, especially as M. Vicaire's knowledge of 
the English books on the subject is incomplete, and his 
ignorance of the American exhaustive, — he has never 
heard of Miss Leshe, poor man. But I am in counte- 
nance again when I refer to Mr. Carew Hazhtt's bibli- 
ography ; for I rejoice in a number of English books 
that have no place in it, while it barely touches upon 
foreign books, of which I have many. When it comes 
to actual collections, I triumph. Mr. Hazlitt speaks of 
the " valuable and extensive assemblage of Enghsh and 
foreign cookery books in the Patent Ofiice Library ; " 
but it dwindles to modest proportions when compared 
to mine. A private collection in Hampstead was de- 
scribed to me by Dr. Furnivall in terms that threatened 
my overwhelming discomfiture ; but, on examination, 
cookery proved a side issue with the collector, and 
though I felt like shpping two or three of his shabby 
little calf -bound volumes into my pocket when he was 
not looking, there were innumerable gaps I could have 
filled. The cookery books at the British Museum are 
many, but diligent searching of the catalogue has not 



Antoniusmota Advulgus. 

Plauditcfaftores:c«tari:pkuditc_ventres 

Plaudite myftili tc<Ila per vndh coqui 
Pila fit albanis quaccunqj ornata lagarnfs 

Pinguc fuum copo limen obcfus amet 
Occupac infubres alciflimus ille nepotum 

Gorges U vndantes auget 8C vrgetaquas 
Millia fex vSntri qui fixit Apicius alto 

Indecimens:rumplic dira ven6na;famem* 

loannes falaiidus lectori. 

Accipe quifquisamas irn'camenta palati: 

Prcccpta;dC leges:oxigarutiK^ nouum: 
Condid«rat caput:8C (lygias penitrauerac vndas 

Celiusnn lucem nee rcdirurus erat: 
Nunc mitur dextra vcrfatus Apiciusomni 

Vrbem habet:SC tecftum qui perigrinus erat : 
A ccepium motte noftro debebis:6C fpfi 

Immortalis eritgratia:lau£ Sd honor: 
Perquemnonlicuit celebricaruifle nepote; 

Perquem dehincfugiet lingua latina fitum. 

ImpreflSim Mcdi'clani per magiftrum Guilcttnum 
Signerre Rothomagenfera Anno doi . Mcccclxxxx 
viu.die.xx.menfis lanuarii. 



7 

Glasse in folio, when always afterwards she appears in 
less ambitious octavo, — to name but the most widely 
known of all. These are not prizes to be dismissed 
lightly. 

My pride compels me to add (in parenthesis, as it 
were, for I had not meant to write about it here) that 
I own not only the Mrs. Glasse, but the Coehus Apicius. 
It is, in the 1498 edition, a beautiful book, printed in 
the Roman type William Morris approved and copied 
for the Kelmscott Press, the page harmoniously spaced, 
with noble margins, a place left at the beginning of 
divisions for the illuminator's capitals, and the paper 
tenderly toned with age. My copy is in surprisingly 
good condition, — not a tear or a stain anywhere. It 
has an interesting pedigree. Dr. BlacMe's autograph 
and the bookplate of Dr. Klotz, the German collector, 
are on the fly-leaf. But it has no title-page ! How- 
ever, even in its mutilated state it is rare, and, though 
I cannot read it, — I went to school before the days of 
the higher education for women, and to a convent, so 
that all the Latin I learnt was the Ave and the Pater, 
the Credo and the Confiteor, — I look upon it as the 
corner stone of my collection. 



Still, I am not like Dibdin's Philemon, and I like to 
read my books. It is another of the good qualities of 
the cookery book that when you can read it, it makes 
the best reading in the world. For this pleasure I must 
come to my shelf of the seventeenth-century Enghsh 
books ; mostly small duodecimos in shabby battered calf, 
one in shabbier battered velliun, their pages browned 
and stained with constant use. It must not be thought 
that my collection leaps in this disjointed fashion from 
century to century. Some very rare and quaint six- 
teenth-century ItaUan books are the link between these 
duodecimos and the Apicius; but to interpret them I 
need a dictionary at my elbow. Besides, they have been 
well cared for by the bibliographer, and I want to show 
first, what has not been shown before, how dehghtful 
the old cookery book is as a book to read, not merely 
to catalogue or to keep handy on the kitchen dresser. 
I pass over also the printed copies of early poems 
and works, preserved in famous historical manuscripts, 
and edited in the last century by Dr. Pegge and other 
scholars, in our day chiefly by Dr. Furnivall and the 
Early English Text Society. Though I consider them 
as indispensable as Apicius, and though I own the 



9 

Forme of Cury and the Liber Cure Cocorum and the 
Noble Book of Cookery, and the rest, they are to be 
classed with Charles Lamb's books that are not books, 
so difficult are they to all but the expert. Unfortu- 
nately, I have none of the sixteenth-century English 
books, of which Hazhtt gives a list of eight. Perhaps 
they were issued in very small editions; more proba- 
bly, they were so popular that, like the early romances 
from Caxton's and from Wynkyn de "Worde's press, 
they were " thumbed out of existence." After 1600 the 
supply seems to have been larger, no doubt because of 
the growing demand, and more copies have survived. 
Most of the cookery books of the seventeenth century 
went through several editions; not even CromweU and 
the Puritans could check their popularity; and I hke to 
think, when I turn over their thin, soiled, torn pages, 
that many people read them not solely for information, 
but for pleasure, like Pepys, that fine simimer day when, 
his wife safe in the country, he carried his ladies to the 
king's pleasure boat, and then down the river, between 
the great wharves and the shipping, " all the way read- 
ing in a book of Receipts of making fine meats and 
sweetmeats . . . which made us good sport." 



10 

For Pepys, to whom, as Stevenson puts it, the whole 
world was a Garden of Armida, "infinite delight" 
lurked as naturally in a recipe as in his first periwig, or 
the nightingales at YauxhaU, or a lesson in arithmetic, 
or whatever else it might be. For us, of less buoyant 
temperament, if there be infinite delight, it is due, above 
all, to the magic of the past and the charm of associ- 
ation. Stateliness and elegance were the order of the 
day in the seventeenth century. The men, who ar- 
rayed themselves in gorgeous clothes, spoke in the 
rounded periods that were ua keeping, — in the " bro- 
caded language" of Mr. Gosse's expressive phrase. 
And the cookery books are fuU of this brocaded lan- 
guage, full of extravagant conceits, full of artificial 
ornament; a lover writing to his mistress, you would 
say, rather than a cook or a housewife giving practical 
directions. After the modern recipe, blunt to the point 
of brutality; after the "Take so much of this, add so 
much of that, and boil, roast, fry," as the dull case may 
be, each fresh extravagance, each fresh affectation, is 
as enchanting as the crook of Lely's ladies or the Silvio 
of Herrick's verse. I should not want to try the re- 
cipes, so appalling often is the combination of savories 



11 

and sweets, so colossal the proportions. But they were 
written by artists who had as pretty a talent for turning 
a phrase as for mventing a new dish. Eose leaves and 
saffron, musk and " amber-greece," orange flower and 
angeUca, are scattered through them, until it seems as 
if the feast could have been spread only for Phillis or 
Anthea. And no water can be poiu-ed into their pots 
that is not " fair," few blossoms chosen as ingredients 
that are not "pleasing." Cakes are " pretty conceits," 
and are garnished " according to art." If cider leaves 
its dregs, these are " naughty," and a sweet is recom- 
mended because it " comf orteth the Stomach and Heart." 
The names of the dishes are a joy: the tanzies of vio- 
lets or cowshps, and the orangado phraises ; the sylla- 
bubs and the frumenties, — "all-tempting Frumenty;" 
the wiggs and the pasties; the eggs in moonshine; the 
conserves of red roses ; the possets without end, almost 
as lyrical as the poet's, made 

" With cream of lilies, not of kine. 
And maiden's blush for spiced wine." 

And the drinks : metheghn, — do we not know to the 
day the date of Pepys' first "brave cup" of it? — 



12 

meath, hydromel, hypocras, — a word that carries one 
to the Guildhall buttery, a certain Lord Mayor's Day, 
where Pepys is gayly tipphng; hypocras "being to the 
best of my present judgment only a mixed compound 
drink, and not any wine," which he had forsworn by 
solemn vow. " If I am mistaken, God forgive me ! but 
I hope and do think I am not." Who would not share 
Pepys' easy conscience ? Hypocras was " only," Dr. 
Twin's way, a strong compound of spice and herbs and 
sugar steeped for days in a gallon of good Rhenish 
wine ; in very good claret wine, Giles Rose's way. 
All the cookery books of the century are written in this 
brocaded language, all reveal the same pleasant fancy, 
all contain the same pretty dishes and strange drinks. 
But still, they have their differences that divide them ' 
into three distinct classes. Many are simply the old fam- 
ily manuscript collection of recipes, at that period com- 
mon in every household of importance, put into print; 
to a few the master cook gives the authority of his name 
and experience ; while there are others in which cook- 
ery is but one of several arts " exposed " by the accom- 
plished women, to whom curing leprosy was as simple as 
cooking a dinner, killing rats as ordinary a pastime as 



13 

making wax flowers, and who had altogether attained a 
degree of omniscience that the modern contributor to 
a ladies' paper might well envy. 

The old manuscript collection of recipes has that touch 
of romance we feel in a bit of half- worn embroidery or 
a faded sampler. The fragrance of rosemary and thyme 
lingers about its leaves. It is full of memories of the 
stilh'oom and the cool, spacious pantry. I have two or 
three, bought before I realized into what depths of bank- 
ruptcy I should plunge if I added manuscripts to my 
printed books. I have seen many others. In all, the 
tone and quality of the paper would make the etcher 
sigh for the waste, while the handwriting — sometimes 
prim, sometimes distinguished, sometimes sprawhng — 
represents generations of careful housewives. The col- 
lection, evidently, has grown at hap-hazard: the new 
dish eaten at a neighbor's, jotted down before its secret 
is forgotten; the new recipe brought by a friend, en- 
tered while she is still by to answer for its accuracy. 
The style is easy and confidential; it abounds in little 
asides and parentheses; and always credit is given 
where credit is due ! This, you are assured, is " Lady 
Dorchester's cake " or " Lady Fitzharding's nun's bis- 



u 

ket; " these are " Lady Kent's brown Almonds " or 
" Lady Compton's preserved Barford pipins; " and you 
must not mistake for any other " Mrs. Oldfield's lemon 
cream " or " Mrs. Brereton's colours for marble cake." 
'Now and then, as if to lend a professional air, a famous 
chef is cited, — Bartolomeo Scappi or Robert May, — 
but this is seldom. And as a housekeeper, in those days, 
had to know how to relieve an indigestion as well as 
how to make the dish that caused it; as she was, in a 
word, the family or village doctor, medical prescriptions 
are mingled with the recipes. As like as not, a cake or 
cream is wedged between " Aqua Mirabilis, Sir Kellam 
Digby's way," and "A most excellent Water for ye 
Stone ; " or an " Arrangement of Cucumbers " separates 
Dr. Graves's " Receipt for Convulsion Fitts " from " A 
Plague Water." 

In the printed books of the seventeenth century there is 
an attempt at classification, " Incomparable Secrets in 
Physick and Chirurgery," if revealed, form a section 
apart ; but in other respects those I have put in the first 
class share the characteristics of the manuscripts. Their 
titles at once point to their origin. Almost all are Closets 
or Cabinets opened. There are exceptions. I have a 



COMPLEAT 

COOK. 

Expertly prefcribing the 

moft ready wayes, 

rjtaltan^ 
Whethcrx5/;tf«f/5, 
Cot French, 

For dreffing o£F/e/&,and Fiff^ 

Ordermsof Sauces^ ormaking- 
O F 

PASTRY. 



L OUT> Ni 

Printed {otNath. Brook at the] 

An^elinCorn-hill^ i 6 ^ %. 



15 

fascinating Compleat Cook, a tiny volume, neatly bound 
in calf, "expertly prescribing the most ready wayes, whe- 
ther ItaUan, Spanish, or French, For dressing of Flesh 
and Fish, Ordering of Sauces, or making of Pastry," 
which was printed for Nathaniel Brook, the great pub- 
lisher of cookery books, at the Angel in Cornhill, 1655. 
I have also two DeUghts : one " printed by R. Y. and are 
to bee sold by James Boler 1632," with a sadly defaced 
title-page, upon which little is legible save the sage 
advice, " Eeade, practise, and Censure ; " and another 
of 1683, " printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of 
the black Bear in St. Pauls Churchyard." I have also a 
Pearl of Practice, and Hartman's True Preserver and 
Restorer of Health. But Closet or Cabinet is the more 
frequent title. When the name of the author does not 
appear, it is usually the Queen's Dehght of which there is 
question, the Queen's Closet or Cabinet which is opened. 
In my first edition of The Queen's Closet Opened, pub- 
lished by the same publisher, Nathaniel Brook, and in the 
same year, 1655, as The Compleat Cook, the title-page 
states that these are the Incomparable Secrets " as they 
were presented to the Queen by the most Experienced 
Persons of our times, many whereof were honoured with 



16 

her own practice, when she pleased to descend to these 
most private Recreations;" and that they were " Tran- 
scribed from the true Copies of her Majesties own Re- 
ceipt Books, by W. M. one of her late servants." In my 
later edition of 1668, a portrait of Henrietta Maria, — 
most likely a copy from Hollar, — severe in feature and 
dress, faces the title-page, much to my satisfaction; for, 
if the book turns up every now and then in booksellers' 
catalogues, mine is the only copy in which I have yet 
seen the portrait. When the name of the author does 
appear, it is usually one of great distinction. There is a 
" Ladies Cabinet Opened by the Rt Hon. and Learned 
Chymist, Lord Ruthven, containing Many Rare Secrets 
and Rich Ornaments of several kindes and different 
Uses." My copy, published in 1655, by Bedell and Col- 
lins, at the Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street, is, alas, a 
second edition; 1639 is the year of the first. But the 
second has the advantage of containing the most gallant 
of prefaces. " Courteous Ladies," it begins ; and it ends, 
" I shall thus leave you at Uberty as Lovers in Gardens, 
to follow your own fancies. Take what you hke, and de- 
light in your choice, and leave what you hst to him whose 
labour is not lost if anything please." Another Closet, 



THE 

QjaEENS CLOSET 

OPENED- 

Incomparable Secrets in 
Thyjicl^ Chirurgery, Tre- 

ftrving^ Candjing^ and Cookery % 
As they were prefented to the 

QJD EE 3\(^ 

By the moft Experienced Perfons of 
I our times, many whereof were honon- 
rcd with her own pradice, when (he 
pleafed to defcend to chefe more private 
Recreations. 

Never be/ore fHbltP)ed. 



Tranfcribcd from the true Copies of her 
MAJESTIES own Receipt-Boob, 
by W.M. one of her late lervanis. 



Vivit fo^ fmer* virtus. 



j Printed for T^thanUt Brook, at ihc Angtl 
I in Ctrnhtll, 1 65 5. 



17 

" Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of 
Metheglin, Cherry- Wine, etc., together with Excellent 
Directions for Cookery," was opened by no less a person 
than Sir Kenelm Digby, whose " name does suflBiciently 
auspicate the Work," as his son, who published it, writes 
in an inimitable preface. As he appears in Vandyck's 
portrait, Sir Kenelm Digby is so very elegant with his 
shining armor, so very intellectual with his broad expanse 
of forehead, that one would as soon expect to hear of 
Lord Sahsbury or Mr. Balfour writing a cookery book. 
His Closet has no place in Vicaire's Bibhography, nor 
in Hazhtt's; I have often wondered why; for, of all, it 
is my favorite. I agree with his dehghtful son that it 
" needs no Rhetorical Floscules to set it off," so pleasant 
is the thought of this " arrant mountebank," as Evelyn 
called him, — this " romantic giant," as later kinder crit- 
ics have it, — in the intervals between his duties as chan- 
cellor to the queen mother, and his intrigues for the 
Church, and his adventures as Theagenes, and his studies 
as astrologer, and his practice as amateur physician, sit- 
ting quietly at his desk writing out his recipes, as care- 
fully as any master cook or scrupulous housewife. 
Not only are these Closets and Cabinets and Dehghts as 



18 

sweet with rosemary and thyme and musk as the manu- 
scripts; they are as exact in referring every dish to its 
proper authority, they retain the tone of intimacy, they 
abound in personal confidences. " My Lady Middlesex 
makes Syllabubs for little glasses with spouts, thus," you 
read in one collection ; in another, " My Lady Glin useth 
her Yenison Pasties" in such and such a fashion; in a 
third, that "this is the way the Countess de Penalva 
makes Portuguez eggs for the Queen." The adjectives 
have the value of a personal recommendation : " The 
most kindley way to preserve plums, cherries, and goose- 
berries;" "A most Excellent Sirup of Yiolets both in 
taste and tincture; " " A singular Manner of making the 
Sirup of Roses; " " another sort of Marmalade very com- 
fortable for any Lord or Lady Whatsoever; " "An ex- 
cellent conceit upon the kernels of dry Walnuts." The 
medicines receive equal tenderness : "An exceeding fine 
Pill used for the Gout; " " a delicate Stove to sweat in; " 
" The Gift of God, praise be to Him, for all manners of 
sores ; " "A Precious Water to Revive the Spirits." Who 
would not swallow a dozen such pills and gifts and wa- 
ters, or sweat a dozen times in such a stove, without a 
murmur 1 But it is the confidential manner that I adore. 



19 

The compiler of the little vellum-bound Delight is for- 
ever taking you into his confidence. He revels in hints 
and innuendoes: "There is a Country Gentlewoman 
whom I could name, which" does so and so; or " This of 
a Kinde Gentlewoman whose sMll I doe highly commend 
and whose case I do greatly pity ; " and you divine all 
sorts of social mysteries. He has sudden outbursts of 
generosity: " I have robbed my wives Dairy of this se- 
cret, who hath hitherto refused all recompenses that have 
been offered her by gentlewomen for the same, and had 
I loved a Cheese myself so well as I like the receipt, I 
think I could not so easily have imparted the same at 
this time. And yet, I must needs confesse, that for the 
better gracing of the Title, wherewith I have fronted this 
pamphlet, I have been wilhng to publish this with some 
other secrets of worth, for the which I have been many 
times refused good store both of crowns and angels. 
And therefore let no Gentlewoman think this Booke too 
deare, at what price soever it shall be valued upon the sale 
thereof, neither can I esteem the worke to be of lesse than 
twenty years gatherings." And people think the art of 
self-advertisement was evolved but yesterday ! Sir Ken- 
ehn Digby is the great master of this confidential style. 



20 

If he gives my Lady Htmgerford's meath, he must ex- 
plain that she sent him special word that " She now useth 
(and liketh better) a second Decoction of Herbs," which 
he also conscientiously records. If he recoromends a sec- 
ond meath, it is because a certain chief burgomaster of 
Antwerp, for many years, drank it, and nothing else, " at 
meals and all times, even for pledging of Healths. And 
though he was of an extraordinary vigour every way, and 
had every year a child, had always a great appetite and 
good digestion, and yet was not fat." He is at pains to 
assure you that though Mr. Webbe, probably a master 
cook, did use to put in a few cloves and mace in the king's 
meath, "the King did not care for them; " that the " Hy- 
dromel, as I made it weak for the Queen Mother was 
exceedingly liked by everybody ; " that Sir Edward Bain- 
ton's metheglin, " My Lord of Portland (who gave it me) 
saith was the best he ever drank;" that for his strange 
dish of tea and eggs, Mr. Waller's advice is that "the wa- 
ter is to remain upon the tea no longer than while you 
can say the Miserere Psalm very leisurely." I sometimes 
think, if I were in need of bedside books, — which I am 
thankful to say I am not, — I should give my choice, not 
to Montaigne and Howell with Thackeray, but to Sir Ken- 



21 

elm Digby and the other openers of the old Closets and 
Cabinets.^ 

The success of these books may have helped to drive the 
English cook into authorship. The artist has not always 
the patience to be silent while the amateur dogmatizes 
upon his art. There is a suggestion of revolt in the pre- 
face Eobert May, the " Accomplisht Cook," addressed 
to his fellow practitioners. " I acknowledge," he says, 
" that there hath aheady been several Books pubhsht 
. . . for aught I could perceive to little purpose, empty 
and unprofitable Treatises, of as little use as some Nig- 
gards Kitchen, which the Reader, in respect of the con- 
fusion of the Method, or barrenness of those Authours 
Experience, hath rather been puzzled, than profited by." 
Mock humility has never been the characteristic of the 
cook. He has always respected himself as the pivot of 
civihzation. Other men, at times, have shared this re- 
spect with him. The Greeks crowned him with gold and 

* I am not sure that I would not add Gervase Markham's Eng- 
lish Housewife (1631) and Dr. Muffett's Healths Improvement 
(1655). Markham is, perhaps, the prettiest and most graceful of 
all these writers. But both books have come into my collection 
only recently, since this chapter was written. 



flowers. He went clothed in velvet, wearing a gold chain, 
in Wolsey's day. And in between, during the Roman 
rule, during ages of dark and mediaeval barbarity, the 
ceremonial of dinner and its serving testified that the 
light of truth still glimmered, if dimly. But none ever 
understood so well as he the full dignity of his profession. 
" A modest Master Cook must be looked on as a contra- 
diction in Nature," was a doctrine in the classical kitchen. 
By the middle of the seventeenth century Vatel ruled in 
France, and in England every distinguished chef was 
ready to swear, with Ben Jonson's Master-Cook in the 
Masque, that 

" A boiler, range, and dresser were the fountains 
Of all the knowledge in the universe ; " 

that the school of cookery, that " deep School," is 

" Both the nurse and mother of the Arts." 
Imagine his dismay, then, when the amateur began to 
masquerade before the world as artist. Had Sir Kenehn 
Digby ever turned out as much as a posset or a syllabub, 
could Lord Ruthven, the learned, make a peacock to 
look like a porcupine, or an entremose of a swan, that 
either should strut his little day as an authority ? Only 
the artist has the right to speak on his art. And as Leo- 



2S 

nardo had written his treatises, as Eeynolds was later 
to deliver his discourses, so Eobert May, Will Eabisha, 
Giles Rose, and others, perhaps, whom I have not in my 
collection, began to publish books upon cookery. Jeal- 
ousy of the Frenchman may have been an additional in- 
centive. France had already the reputation for delicate 
dining which she has never lost, and the noble lord or 
lady who patronized the young apprentice sent him for 
his training across the Chamiel. May and Kabisha had 
both served their term in French households. But it was 
another matter when the French chef's book was trans- 
lated into English, and threatened to rob the Enghsh 
cook of his glory at home. May's preface is full of sneers 
at the " Epigram Dishes" with which the French "have 
bewitched some of the Gallants of our Nation.''^ 
Whatever the cook's motive in writing, he gave his book 
a character all its own. The actual dishes and drinks 
may be those of Closets and Cabinets, but the tone of 
intimacy disappears from the recipe; no name but the 
author's vouches for the merits of a dish ; the writer is 
no longer on a level of equality with his readers, but 
addresses them from a higher plane, the plane of know- 
ledge. There is no mistaking the air of authority. Offi- 



24 

cers of the Mouth receive their inBtructions, and irre- 
sistible little cuts of birds of strange shape, and joints 
of no shape at all, devices for pies and pastry, are intro- 
duced as a guide to the Carver and Sewer. Nothing is 
neglected, from the building up of those magnificent — 
the adjective is May's — triumphs and trophies, those 
subtleties, as elaborate as Inigo Jones's setting of a 
masque, that were " the delights of the Nobility," to the 
folding of " all sorts of Table-hnen in all sorts of Fig- 
ures, a neat and gentill Art," much in vogue. And 
throughout, the writer never forgets his own impor- 
tance. He is as serious as Montaigne's Italian chef, who 
talked of cooking with the gravity of the theologian and 
in the language of the statesman. His style is as fan- 
tastic as that of the cook in Howell's letter to Lady Cot- 
tington. He "will tell your Ladyship," Howell writes, 
" that the reverend Matron, the Olla podrida hath Intel- 
lectuals and Senses ; Mutton, Beef, and Bacon are to her 
as the Will, Understanding, and Memory are to the Soul; 
Cabbages, Turnips, Artichokes, Potatoes, and Dates 
are her five Senses, and Pepper the Common-sense ; she 
must have Marrow to keep Life in her, and some Birds 
to make her fight; by aU means she must go adorned with 
Chains of Sausages." 



25 

The very title of the cook's treatise was a marvel of bom- 
bast. Robert May's — the book was first pubhshed in 
1660, by IS^athaniel Brook — must be given in full : " The 
Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of Cookery. 
Wherein the whole Art is revealed in a more easie and 
perfect Method, than hath been pnbhsht in any Lan- 
guage. Expert and ready wayes for the Dressing of all 
sorts of Flesh, Fowl and Fish : The Raising of Pastes ; 
the best Directions for all manner of Kickshaws, and 
the most Poinant Sauces; with the Tearms of Carving 
and Sewing. An exact Account of all Dishes for the 
Season; with other A la mode Curiosities. Together 
with the hvely Llustrations of such necessary Figures as 
are referred to Practice. Approved by the Fifty Years 
Experience and Industry of Robert May, in his Attend- 
ance on several Persons of Honour." Let me quote just 
one other, for though it is as long, it is also as irresistible. 
The book is WUl Rabisha's ; the date, 1673 ; the pubhsher, 
E. Calvert at the sign of the Black Spread Eagle at 
the West End of St. Paul's; and the title: « The whole 
Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and fully mani- 
fested, Methodically, Artificially, and according to the 
best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch 



26 

etc. Or, a Sympathy of all varieties in Natural Com- 
pomide in that Mysterie. "Wherein is contained certain 
Bills of Fare for the Seasons of the year, for Feasts 
and Common Diets. Wherunto is annexed a Second 
Part of Rare Receipts of Cookery : with certain useful 
Traditions. With a book of Preserving, Conserving and 
Candying, after the most Exquisite and Newest manner: 
Delectable for Ladies and Gentlewomen." A title, this, 
that recalls Dorothy Osborne's coxcombs who " labour 
to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense." 
The note may be pitched high, but not too high for the 
grandiloquent flights that f oUow. Dedications, prefaces, 
introductory poems, are in harmony, and as ornate with 
capitals and itahcs as the dishes are with spices and 
sweets. The Accomplisht Cook is further " embellished " 
with May's portrait: a large, portly person, with heavy 
face, but determined mouth, wearing his own hair, 
though I hope he Uved long enough to take, like Pepys, 
to a periwig, so well would it have become him. Below 
the portrait, verses, engraved on the plate, declare with 
poetic confusion that, 

" Would'st thou view but in one face. 
All hospitalitie, the race 




yJlVliat^ inoii'd-yt tma akw hut in one face 
aU Ifojvthiliiie tlic nice , 
,oftno/c' that Jor tlw Gtr^yto ■siamL 
whose i/ihlcs a wiwle^rk aymand 
jfT^uivj trli'Titic wouldst tnoU fen , V 
tfiis ft f/it, jjcrufc Ma i],y look^^fhsjjce^ 



■: I.- I.. 



27 

Of those that for the Gusto stand. 
Whose tables a whole Ark comand 
Of Nature's plentie, would'st thou see 
This sight, peruse May's booke, 't is hee." 

A few pages further on there is another panegyric in 
verse, " on the unparallel'd Piece of Mr. May, his Cook- 
ery," and an appeal " to the Reader of (my very loving 
Friend) Mr. Robert May, his incomparable Book of 
Cookery," by an admirer who thinks only the pen 

" Of famous Cleaveland or renowned Ben, 
If unintoom'd might give this Book its due." 

Will Rabisha has but one poet to sing his praise ; he, 
however, does it thoroughly: — 

" Brave Book, into the world begone. 
Thou vindicatest thy Authour fearing none, 
That ever was, or is, or e're shall be 
Able to find the parallel of thee." 

The dedications are obsequious for such great men, but 
obsequiousness in dedications was the fashion of the day. 
May's book is dedicated not alone to Sir Kenelm Digby, 
but to Lord Lumley, Lord Lovelace, Sir Wilham Paston, 
Sir Frederick Comwallis, aU of whom, with the exception 



28 

of Lord Lovelace, contributed to Sir Kenelm Digby's 
collection of recipes. " The Maecenas's and Patrons of 
this Generous Art," May calls them, in a rhetorical out- 
burst. Eabisha, on the other hand, pays his tribute to 
two " illustrious duchesses," and three " renowned, sia- 
gular good, and vertuous Ladies," to whose " boundless 
unspeakable virtues " he would do the honor that in him 
lies. May was the "most humbly devoted servant to 
their Lordships," and Eabisha the " poor, unworthy ser- 
vant till death " of their graces and ladyships. But this 
was mere posing. The real man in May comes out when 
he addresses as "Most "Worthy Artists" the master 
cooks and young practitioners to whom he hopes his 
book will be useful; when he explains that he writes 
because "God and my own Conscience would not permit 
me to hury these my JExperiences with my Silver Hairs 
in the Grave." No one shall say of him that he " hid 
his Candle under a Bushel." It is the real Eabisha who 
dwells upon the " Many years study and practice in the 
Art and Mysterie of Cookery " that are his quaUfications 
as author, and the duty of " the ingenious men of all Arts 
and Sciences to hold forth to Posterity what light or 
knowledge " they understand to be obscure in their art. 



29 

The same spirit betrays itself here and there in the re- 
cipes. " The fruits and flowers that you make white 
must be kept in a dry place," writes Giles Rose, or his 
translator, " if you will keep them for your credit and 
honour." For your credit and honor ! There spoke the 
artist. Or again, for the whipping of cream, your whisk 
" ought to be made of the fine small twigs of Birch, or 
such like wood neatly peeled, and tied up in quantity a 
little bigger than your thumb, and the small ends must 
be cut off a little, for fear of breaking in your cream, 
and so you come to be made ashamed." That is the 
kind of thing, as Stevenson says, that reconciles one to 
life ! The flamboyant recipes, the monumental menus, 
are amusing; but what I love best in my cookery books 
is the " vanity of the artist " that is their inspiration. 
It was the vanity of the superior woman that inspired 
Mrs. Hannah Woolley, now forgotten by an ungrateful 
world. In 1670 she pubhshed The Queen-Like Closet 
or Rich Cabinet, with a Supplement added in 1674, that 
echpsed aU the Treasuries and Guides and Practices 
for Ladies that had already appeared, as it excels those 
that, later on, were to take it as model. It is the only 
seventeenth-century book of the kind in my collection; 



80 

but were the others on the shelf with it, I should still 
turn to Mrs. "WooUey as the perfect type of the Univer- 
sal Provider of her age and generation. She was sim- 
ply amazing, as no one knew better than herself. Like 
Eobert May, she did not believe in hiding her candle 
under a bushel; but where May wrote for the greater 
honor of his art, she wrote for the greater honor of her- 
self. Even had she pined for the peace of obsciu-ity, — 
which she did not, — her remarkable talents had made 
her conspicuous since childhood. Before she was fifteen 
she had been the mistress of a little school, — she tells 
the tale herself, — where she continued till the age of 
seventeen, " when my extraordinary parts appeared more 
splendid in the eyes of a noble lady in this Kingdom than 
really they deserved, and she greedily entertained me in 
her house as Governess of her only Daughter." Then, 
at -the death of the first lady, this prodigy was as greed- 
ily appropriated by a second, and presently " gained so 
great an esteem among the ISTobility and Gentry of two 
Counties, that I was necessitated to yield to the impor- 
tunity of one I dearly lov'd, that I might free myself 
from the tedious caresses of many more." As, before 
she had done with hfe, she had been married to "two 



SI 

Worthy Eminent and brave Persons," it is uncertain 
whether the first or the second " dearly loved " was Mr. 
Eichard WooUey, " Master of Arts and Header at St. 
Martin, Ludgate." The one thing certain is that it was 
from his house, in the Old Bailey in Golden Cup Court, 
she addressed the female sex, to whom her books — she 
wrote three in all — were to be a guide " in all Relations, 
Companies, Conditions, and States of Life, even from 
Childhood down to Old Age ; and from the Lady at the 
Court to the Cook-maid in the Country." There is a por- 
trait of her in one of the books : a large, pompous wo- 
man, with heavy bunches of curls on either side her face, 
in a low velvet gown and pearls, who looks fit to tackle 
anything. And indeed, it must be said of her that she 
never shrank from duty. She even stooped to poetry, 
since it was the fashion to introduce it in the beginning 
of all such books, and her rhymes are surprisingly frivo- 
lous and jingling for so severe a lady. " I shall now give 
you," is her introduction to the Supplement, which she 
rightly calls A Little of Every Thing, — "I shall now 
give you some Directions for Washing Black and White 
Sarsnet, or Coloured SilJcs ; Washing of Points, Laces, 
or the hke ; starching of Tiffanies, making clean Plate, 



32 

cleaning of Gold and Silver Lace, washing Silk Stock- 
ings, adorning of Closets with several pretty Fancies; 
things excellent to keep the Hands "White and Face and 
Fyes clear; how to make Transparent Work, and the 
Colours thereto belonging; also Puff Work; some more 
Eeceipts for Preserving and cookery; some Remedies 
for snch Ailments as are incident to all People; as Corns, 
Sore Fyes, Cut Fingers, Bruises, Bleeding at JVose ; all 
these you may help by my directions, with a small mat- 
ter of cost ; whereas else you may be at a great charge 
and long Trouble, and perhaps endanger your Fyes or 
Limbs. I shall give you none but such things as I have 
had many years experience of with good success, I 
praise God." 

]S"or does this exhaust her resources. She offers, for " a 
reasonable Gratuity," to jBnd good places for servants 
who wiU call upon her at Golden Cup Court. She is as 
full of stories of the astounding cures she has wrought 
as the manufacturer of a patent pill. She writes letters 
to serve as models, so many does she meet with that she 
could tear as she reads, " they are so full of impertiaency 
and so tedious." She has advice for parents and children 
which " may prevent much wickedness for the future." 



S3 

She teaches waxwork. On one page she is dressing the 
hearth for smnmer time ; on the next playing the art 
master, for she has seen " such ridiculous things done 
as is an abomination to an Artist to behold." As for ex- 
ample : " You may find in some Pieces, Abraham and 
Sarah, and many other Persons of Old Time, cloathed 
as they go now adaies, and truly sometimes worse." And 
that the female sex — and, as we know from the exam- 
ples of Mrs. Pepys and Pegg Penn, the female sex was 
then busy painting — may not f aU into similar error, she 
informs them of both the visage and habit of the heroes 
they, in their modesty, wiU be most apt to paint. Thus, 
" If you work Jupiter, the Imperial feigned God, He must 
have long Black-Curled hair, a Purple Garment trimmed 
with Gold, and sitting upon a Golden Throne, with bright 
yellow Clouds about him ; " or, if it be Hymen, the God 
of Marriage, you must work him "with long YeUow Hair 
in a Purple or Saffron-Coloured Mantle." There was 
nothing this ornament to her sex was afraid to teach. 
To judge from the condition of my copy of The Queen- 
Like Closet, she was not unappreciated. The title-page 
has gone ; the dog's-ears and stains and tatters might 
make one weep, were they not such an admirable testi- 



34 

monial. In 1678 it was presented to Mary Halfpenny 
by " Brother John Halfpenny when he was at Trinity 
College," and the fly-leaves are covered with her own 
recipes for syllabubs and gooseberry wine, for orange 
pudding and "plane" cake; and there is on one page 
a valuable note from her, to the effect that the tune of 
mushrooms is about the middle of September. Later, at 
some unknown date, the book became the property of 
Anna, Warden ; and about the middle of the next century 
it answered the purpose of family Bible to the Keeling 
family, so that I know to the hour when Thomas and 
Rebecca, children of James and Rebecca, were bom, — 
destined to grow up and prosper, I hope, imder the large 
and benevolent guidance of Hannah Woolley. I have 
never had the luck of the French collector who picked 
up Rousseau's copy of the Imitation of Christ, with the 
famous periwinkle from Les Charmettes pressed between 
the pages. But I prize even these modest names and 
notes on a fly-leaf or a margin; for me, they add a dis- 
tinctly personal charm to the shabby little old cookery 
book. 

Personal charm enough it has in itself, you might say, 
when it belongs to the seventeeiath century. The eigh- 



35 

teenth-century books are not without fascination and 
character, but they have lost something of the fresh- 
ness, the naivete, the exuberance, of youth; the style is 
more sophisticated ; the personality of the author is kept 
more in the background. May and Rabisha, Giles Rose 
and Hannah WooUey, are so entertaining in their self- 
revelations, they teU us so much of their age, besides 
the manner of its cookery, that the wonder is they should 
be cheerfuUy ignored, now that Howell and Evelyn and 
Pepys are household names. 



N: 



II 



EXT to eating good dinners, a healthy man with 
a benevolent turn of mind must like, I think, to read 
about them." The words are Thackeray's, and they en- 
courage me, if I need encouragement, in my belief that 
to go on writing about my Cookery Books is a duty I 
owe not only to myself, but to the world. 
If I have owned to a sneaking preference for the little 
calf and vellum covered duodecimos of the seventeenth 
century, courteous and gallant as the Stuart days to 
which they belong, I should lose no time in adding that 
it is to the eighteenth century I am indebted for the great 
treasure of my collection, — Mrs. Glasse in the famous 
" pot folio " of the first edition. The copy belonged, as 
I have explained, to George Augustus Sala, and came 
up for sale when his library was disposed of at Sotheby's 
in the July of 1896. This library was a disappointment 
to most people, — to none more than to me. I had heard 
much of Sala's cookery books, but small as my collec- 
tion then was I found only three that I had not already. 
Bartolomeo Scappi's Cuoco Secreto, in fine binding, but 



37 

not in the first edition (which I secured a year or two 
after) ; The Dehnonico Cook Book, and excellent it is ; 
and Mrs. Glasse, — The Art of Cookery, Made Plain 
and Easy; "Which far exceeds any Thing of the Kind 
ever yet Published, to give her book its full title. In the 
preliminary paragraphs that went the round of the press, 
Mrs. Glasse alone received the honor of special men- 
tion; in that dingy httle salesroom in Wellington Street, 
where, however high passions — and prices — may run, 
the group at the table seem to have come together for 
nothing more exciting than a sociable nap, Mrs. Glasse 
again held the place of honor in a glass case apart. 
Everything pointed to a struggle. It would take a 
braver woman than I to face the " knock-outs " and 
" rings " before which the private buyer is said to be as 
a lamb led to the slaughter. When the day of the sale 
came, hke royalty at important functions, I was " repre- 
sented " at Sotheby's, and myself stayed at home with 
my emotions. The sequel is known. Is not the book on 
my shelves ? It came that same evening, the two others 
with it. " I am pleased," wrote my representative, " to 
be able to send you the three books, and aU below your 



as 

limit, and hope you will be satisfied." Satisfied ? "Was 
there ever a woman yet to whom a bargain was not half 
the joy of possession ? 

Sala, it was currently reported, valued the book at five 
hundred dollars ; I paid but fifty. It was not because 
he overestimated its rarity. The first edition is almost 
as rare as he thought. On the fly-leaf of his copy he 
wrote, July, 1876, that only three others were known to 
be in existence : one at the British Museiim, a second 
at the Bodleian, and a third in the library of a country 
clergyman. Since then only two others, to my know- 
ledge, have materialized. But Sala was a vandal ; his 
copy was evidently in a shocking state when he found 
it, in a barrow in a South London slum according to the 
legend, and he had the battered and torn pages mended, 
and the book bound in substantial and expensive, if in- 
appropriate binding. So far, so good. Still he also had 
it interleaved. He seems to have believed that his own 
trivial newspaper correspondence on the subject, care- 
fully pasted in, would increase its value. How often have 
I looked at the book and decided, at whatever cost, to 
get rid of the interleaving and the newspaper clippings, 
an insult ahke to Mrs. Glasse and myself ! How often 



89 

have I decided that to reduce it to its original slim- 
nees would be to destroy its pedigree ; not a very distin- 
guished pedigree, but still the copy was known m the 
auction room as Sala's, and, therefore, as Sala's must it 
not remain ? Whoever can settle this problem for me 
will lift a burden of responsibihty from shoulders not 
strong enough to bear it. 

Now I have the first edition, I do not mind admitting 
that no other treatise on cookery owes its reputation so 
httle to merit, so much to chance. It was popular in 
its own day, I grant you. The Biographical Diction- 
ary says that, except the Bible, it had the greatest sale 
in the language. It went into edition after edition. 
There are ten in the British Museum. I own six myself, 
though I vowed that the first sufficed for my wants. 
The book was repubhshed in Edinburgh. It was revived 
as late as 1852, perhaps later still, for all I as yet know. 
But almost aU the eighteenth-century books shared its 
popularity, — only the Biographical Dictionary has not 
happened to hear of them. I have The Compleat 
Housewife, by E. Smith, in the eighteenth edition ; I 
have Elizabeth Moxon's Enghsh Housewife, in the thir- 
teenth ; I have John Parley's London Art of Cookery, 



40 

in the eleventh, and I might go on through a list of 
titles and authors long forgotten by every one but me. 
All are as amusing now as the Art of Cookery, and 
were probably very useful in their day. The receipts 
are much the same ; indeed, the dihgence with which 
the authorities upon cookery in the eighteenth century 
borrowed one from the other, without a word of acknow- 
ledgment, ought to have kept the law courts busy. Nor 
does the manner vary more than the matter. Of most 
of the books the authors could say as truthfully as Mrs. 
Glasse of hers, that they were " not wrote in the high 
pohte stile." Not even her sex gives Mrs. Glasse dis- 
tinction in an age when authorship or public practice 
of any sort was indelicate in a female. Mary Eale, E. 
Smith, Ehzabeth Raff aid, — a charming person in a mob 
cap, if you can trust her portrait, — Charlotte Mason, 
Ehzabeth Cleland, Martha Bradley, were a few of her 
many rivals. And where are they now ? 

" Where 's Hipparchia, and where is Thais ? " 
If Mrs. Glasse alone survives, it is for one reason only, 
and that the most unreasonable. Her fame is due not to 
her genius, for she really had none, but to the fact that her 
own generation beheved there was " no sich a person," 



41 

and after generations believed in her as the author of 
a phrase she never wrote. And, indeed, no one would 
remember even the doubt at the time thrown upon her 
identity, but for Bos well. I know Cumberland also is an 
authority for the report that Dr. Hill wrote the book. 
HiE, he says, was " a needy author who could not make 
a dinner out of the press till, by a happy transforma- 
tion into Hannah Glasse, he turned himself into a cook 
and sold receipts for made dishes to all the savoury 
readers in the kingdom. Then, indeed, the press ac- 
knowledged him second in fame only to John Bunyan; 
his feasts kept pace in sale with Nelson's Fasts, and 
when his own name was fairly written out of credit, he 
wrote himself into immortality under an alias." But no- 
body nowadays reads Cumberland's Memoirs, and every- 
body reads Boswell, — or pretends to. The subject came 
up at Mr. Dilly's dinner-table. "Mrs. Glasse's Cookery, 
which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade 
knows this," said Mr. Dilly, who, being in the trade him- 
self, ought to have been an authority. But Dr. Johnson 
was of another opinion: "Women can spin very well, 
but they cannot make a good book of cookery," Mrs. 
Glasse's is not a good book, mistakes occurring in it; 



therefore, Dr. Hill, a man, could not have written it. I 
agree with Dr. Johnson's conclusions, but on far simpler 
grounds. The impersonation of Mrs. Glasse would, ia the 
end, have become too elaborate a joke to carry through, 
had Dr. Hill been as ingenious and as wanting in ve- 
racity as in Dr. Johnson's description of him to George 
in. The first edition of the Art of Cookery — the foho, 
sold at Mrs. Ashburn's China Shop, comer of Fleet 
Ditch, and at Mrs. Wharton's, at the Blue Coat Boy, 
near the Koyal Exchange — was published anonymously 
in 1747. " By a Lady " is printed on the title-page. 
Only later editions, the octavo, sold by innumerable 
booksellers. Dr. Johnson's friend Mr. Millar among 
them, appear with the name H. Glasse on the title-page 
and above the first chapter. To invent the name would 
have been no great tax on the imagination. But, by the 
fourth edition. Dr. Hill would have had to invent a trade 
as well. For in this edition, and in this one only, an im- 
pressive engraved frontispiece describes Hannah Glasse 
— and if the description is long, it is too inimitable not 
to be quoted in full — as " Habit-Maker, to Her Eoyal 
Highness the Princess of Wales, in Tavistock Street 
Covent Garden. Makes & Sells all Sorts of Eiding 




















■ "^ . .' ' ' . , ' ' '' 

111 T;r, 'J 1 ^f> rkStivi^ifVA-J'itlCT.i 1.1 iS'if, 



■\iUv theiii-.-iro/t 



iYiUW'WV. 



}■/.', 



,-rA/-V//.»/.v/ 



rSf' 



Ji^il.Sorfs oi'i'i'iiJ'^^K JtLiices axCIii*;ij> a«IVrij(i jJioTlfakers 
■; •'^i?fi'/, f'/U'^^f^f/^^i.*y//^rt^y^'^<''i^' 'fj^'/ •''f'\'''--» r/~.\;^ '^v/*'/ ^^ 

f'i'r-- Likt-\' iieaJJ Sorfs of\M.i/f|sjerarlr .Drefscs. 



48 

Habits, Josephs, Great Coats, Horsemens Coats, Eussia 
Coats, Hussar Coats, Bedgowns, Night-Gowns, and 
Eobe de shambers, Widows Weeds, Sultains, Sultans, 
and Cantouches, after the neatest manner. Likewise Par- 
liament, Judges, & Councellers Robes, Italian Robes, 
Cossockeens, Capuchins, N^ewmarket Cloaks, Long- 
Cloaks, Short Do. Quilted Coats, Hoop Petticoats, Under 
Coats, All Sorts of Fringes & Laces as Cheap as from 
the Makers Bonnetts, Hatts, Short Hoods and Caps of 
all Sorts Plain Sattins, Sasnetts and Persians. All Sorts 
of Childbed Linning, Cradles, Baskets «& Robes &c Also 
Stuffs, Camblets, Calimancoes & Worsted Damasks, 
Norwich Crapes & Bumbasins, Scarlet Cloaths, Duffels 
& Frizes, Dimitys, New Market Hunting Caps, &c. 
Likewise all Sorts of Masquerade Dresses." 
More than this. Dr. Hill, thus established on copper plate, 
would have had promptly to invent his failure. In 1754, 
three years later, Hannah Glasse figured among the 
bankrupts of the year; " Hannah Glasse of St.Paurs, Co- 
vent Garden, Warehousekeeper," is the entry. He would 
also have had to claim two other books : The Servant's 
Directory, published in 1760, ahnost fifteen years after 
the Art of Cookery, a book I have never been able to 



u 

find/ and The Compleat Confectioner, published in I can- 
not say what year, for my copy, a first edition, has no date, 
and the book is known neither to Hazhtt nor Vicaire. 
And as a last touch, he must have had the brilliant idea 
of opening a cookery school in Edinburgh, if I can trust 
" M. D.," who wrote a note on the fly-leaf of my copy 
of The Compleat Confectioner to protest against the 
revival, in the Times, of the old scandal. This was in 
1866, when some one rashly called Mrs. Glasse "Mrs. 
Harris." Mrs. Glasse, M. D. says, " hved in the flesh La 
Edinburgh about 1790. She taught cookery to classes 
of young ladies. My mother was a pupil and fondly 
showed in her old age to her children a copy of Glaese's 
Cookery, with the autograph of the authoress, gained as 
a prize in the School of Cookery." "M. D." at once 
spoils her case by adding, " This book did contain ' Catch 

* Just as I am re-reading this before trusting it to the post, a 
package is handed to me. I open it. The Servant's Directory, or 
Housekeeper's Companion, by H. Glasse. The book I have been 
searching for during long years ! The miracle I owe, I am proud 
to say, to Mr. Janvier, whose intimacy with Mr. Hutchinson, Port 
of Philadelphia, has made him sympathize with me in my study 
of the Science of the Gullet. 



45 

your Hare.' " Not before seeing it could I believe. I 
have spent hoiu-8 in pursuit of the famous phrase, or, at 
least, the reason of the misquotation, in the hope that 
success might, forever after, hnk my name with that of 
Hannah Glasse. But I can come no nearer to the clue 
than the " First Case your hare," found in every cook- 
ery book of the period, that Mr. Churton Collins has just 
been offering as an explanation, and so depriving me of 
the chance of being the first with even this obvious 
discovery. 

Well, anyway, beheve in Mrs. Glasse, or not, the cookery 
book that bears her name is the only one published in the 
eighteenth century now remembered by the whole world. 
An d yet, it is in eighteenth-century books my collection 
is richest. They are mostly substantial octavos, calf 
bound, much the worse for wear, often " embeUished " 
with an elegant frontispiece, a portrait of the author, or 
picture of the kitchen, and, I regret to say, seldom very 
beautiful examples of the printer's art. Several have 
been given to me by friends who know my weakness. 
For instance, few books in my entire library do I prize 
more than the Collection Of above Three Hundred Re- 
ceipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery; For the Use of 



Xll 

TITLE : ISniEVO AETE DE COODfA, 1760 . . .106 

TITLE : DE EE CIBAEIA, 1560 112 

KITCHEN UTENSILS, ETC. : SCAPPl'S OPEEA, 1570 . 114 
TITLE : LA VAEENNE'S CUISLNTIEE EEANCOIS, 1656 . 120 
TEAPOTS : LE BON USAGE DU THE, ETC., 1687 . . 122 

TITLE : l'AET DE CONSEEVEE SA SANTB, 1753 . 126 

TITLE : LA CUISESriEEE BOUEGEOISE, 1777 . . 128 

TITLE : GEEVASE MAEKHAM'S ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE, 

1631 132 

EEONTISPIECE : THE QUEEN'S CLOSET, 1668 . . 136 

POETEAIT OF SLR KENELM DIGBT . . . .138 

PLAN OP THE TABLE : COMPLEAT CITY AND COUN- 

TEY COOK, 1732 148 

POETEAIT OP EDWAED KIDDEE . . . .150 

TITLE : PmST EDITION OP MES. GLASSE'S AET OP 

COOKEEY, 1747 154 

WOOD ENGEAVING BY JOHN BEWICK PEOM THE 

HONOURS OP THE TABLE, 1788 . . . .162 
TITLE : AETE DE COCINA, ETC 168 



MY COOKERY BOOKS 



MY 

COOKERY BOOKS 



JLT was with something of a shock that I woke one morn- 
ing and found myself a collector of cookery books. I 
am not sure which seemed the more extraordinary, — 
that there should be cookery books to collect, or that I 
should be collecting them. I had thought — if indeed I 
had thought anything about it — that Mrs. Rorer and 
Cassell's Dictionary exhausted the literature of the sub- 
ject, though I had heard of Mrs. Glasse : partly because 
the " First catch your hare," which she never wrote, long 
since passed into a classical quotation ; and partly because, 
when I first came to London, George Augustus Sala was 
still writing the newspaper notes he could rarely finish 
without a reference to " good old Hannah Glasse." How- 
ever, had I known then, as I do now, that cookery books 
are almost as old as time, my principles — and my purse 
— were against collecting anything, especially in Lon- 



2 

don, where it adds seriously to the burden of cleanliness. 
But who does go about it deliberately? Mr. Andrew 
Lang calls collecting a sport; Dr. Hill Burton defines it 
first as a " human frailty," then as a " peculiar malady," 
which is the definition I accept. Certainly I can trace my 
attack to its deadly germ. 

I had undertaken, in an ambitious moment, to write a 
weekly column on cookery for the Pall Mall Gazette, 
when my only qualifications were the healthy appetite 
and the honest love of a good dinner usually considered 
" unbecoming to the sex." To save me from exposure, a 
friend gave me Dumas' Dictionnaire de la Cuisine, the 
masterpiece of that "great artist in many varieties of 
form," to quote Mr. Henley, as it is appropriate I should, 
since he was the friend who came so nobly to my aid. 
The book was useful beyond expectation. I borrowed 
from its pages as lavishly as Dumas had, in compiling it, 
helped himself from the dishes and menus of Beauvilliers 
and Yuillemot. The danger was that I might borrow 
once too often for the patience of my readers; and so, 
chancing presently on the uniformly bound works of 
Oareme, Btienne, and Gouff e in a second-hand bookshop, 
I bought them, without stopping to ask if they were first 



8 

editions, — as they were not, — so far was the idea of 
collecting still from my mind. My one object was good 
" copy." But booksellers always manage to know you 
are collecting before you know it yourself. Catalogues 
poured in upon me, and I kept on buying all the cook- 
ery books that promised to be of use. Gradually they 
spread out into an imposing row on my desk ; they over- 
flowed to the bookshelves ; they piled themselves up in 
odd corners ; they penetrated into the linen closet, — 
the last place, I admit, the neat housekeeper should 
look for them. And yet, it was not until the summer 
when I went without a new gown, and carried off at 
Sotheby's, from the clutches of the dealer and the maw 
of the hbrarian, one of the few first editions of " good 
old Hannah Glasse " — the very copy from which Sala 
made hundreds of articles — for fifty dollars, and bought 
a bookcase for I do not remember how many more, 
that I reahzed what had happened, and then it was too 
late. 

Anyhow, my sin has not been the " unlit lamp and the 
ungirt loin." If it be a mistake to collect, at least I 
have collected so well that I have yet to find the col- 
lection of cookery books that can equal mine. It may 



be put to shame when I consult M. Georges Yicaire's 
Bibliographie Gastronomique, with its twenty-five hun- 
dred entries, especially as M. Yicaire's knowledge of 
the English books on the subject is iacomplete, and his 
ignorance of the American exhaustive, — he has never 
heard of JVIiss Leshe, poor man. But I am in counte- 
nance again when I refer to Mr. Carew Hazhtt's bibU- 
ography ; for I rejoice in a number of English books 
that have no place in it, while it barely touches upon 
foreign books, of which I have many. When it comes 
to actual collections, I triumph. Mr. Hazhtt speaks of 
the " valuable and extensive assemblage of English and 
foreign cookery books in the Patent Ofiice Library ; " 
but it dwindles to modest proportions when compared 
to mine. A private collection in Hampstead was de- 
scribed to me by Dr. Furnivall in terms that threatened 
my overwhelming discomfiture ; but, on examination, 
cookery proved a side issue with the collector, and 
though I felt like sKpping two or three of his shabby 
Httle calf -bound volumes into my pocket when he was 
not looking, there were innimierable gaps I could have 
filled. The cookery books at the British Museum are 
many, but diligent searching of the catalogue has not 



revealed so great a number or as many treasures as my 
small bookcase contains. A rumor has reached me of 
an extraordinary series left as a legacy to the Public 
Library at Salem (Massachusetts) ; but I have not the 
money to cross the Atlantic and face the truth, or the 
courage to write to the hbrarian and hear it from him. 
I know, too, by repute, of the books of the Society of 
Cooks at Bordeaux ; am I not just now in correspond- 
ence with their bookseller ? There is also, I know, a 
Company of Cooks in the city of London, but I doubt if 
they own a book, or, for that matter, can claim a real cook 
in their ranks. Besides, so long as I have seen no other 
existing collection, I can continue to flatter myself that 
mine is unrivaled. 

The reason for pride may not be clear to the average 
woman, who looks upon the cookery book, at its best, as 
a kitchen Baedeker, or to the average man, who would 
consider it unmanly to look upon it at all. But that is 
simply because the average woman and the average man 
do not know. The cookery book has every good quality 
that a book can have. In the first place, it makes a 
legitimate appeal to the collector, and M. Vicaire and 
Mr. Hazlitt show what the bibliographer can do with it. 



Man, the cooking animal, has had from the beginning a 
cooking hterature. What are parts of the Old Testa- 
ment, of the Yedas, but cookery books ? You cannot 
dip into Athengsus without reahzing what an inspiration 
food and drink always were to the Greek poet. As for 
the Komans, from Yirgil to Horace, from Petronius to 
Lucian, praise of good eating and drinking was forever 
their theme, both in prose and in verse. Early French 
and English historical manuscripts and records are full 
of cookery ; and almost as soon as there was a printing 
press cookery books began to be printed, and they have 
kept on being printed ever since. It would be strange 
if, among them, there were not a few that provided the 
excitement of the hunt and the triumph of conquest. 
For the lover of the early printed book, there are the 
De Honesta Yoluptate of Platina, 1474 ; the Viandier 
of Taillevent, — about 1490, according to Vicaire, is 
the date of the first edition; and the Coehus Apicius, 
1486. For the " Elzevirian," there is the Uttle Patis- 
sier Frangais, that once fetched three thousand dollars 
in the sales room, and seldom brings less than three 
himdred, — prices that impart dignity to all cook books. 
For the " Editio-Princeps man," there is the rare Mrs. 



Antoniusmota Advulgus. 

PIauditefartores:csttari:pkuditeLVcntfes 

Plaudice myftili tecfla per vndla coqtri 
Pila fit albanis quaccunqj ornata lagscnf s 

Pinguc fuura copo limen obcfus amet 
Occupat infubrcs altind'mus illc ncpotum 

Gorges 86 vndances auget 8C vrgccaquas 
Ml Ilia fex vSntri qui (ixit Apicius airo 

Inde timens:fumplic dira ven6na;famem. 

loannes (alandus letHiori. 

Accipe quifquisamas irn'camenta palati: 

Prccepca;^ leges:oxigarumcp nouutn: 
Condiderac capuc:8C (lygias penitrauerac vndas 

Celtus:in lucem nee rcdirurus erat: 
Nunc tmtat dexcra vcrfatus Apicius^omni 

Vrbem habec:6C tedum qui pen'grinus erat : 
Acceptum mottc noftro debebis:8Cipfi 

Immortalis ericgratia:laus & honor: 
Per quern non licuic celcbri carui fife nepote: 

Per quern dehinc fugiec lingua latina ficura. 

Imprcilum Mediolani per magiftrum Guilermum 
Signcrre Rothomagenfera Anno dni . Mcccclxxxx 
vtu.dicxx.menfis laouarii. 



7 
Glasse in folio, when always afterwards she appears in 
less ambitious octavo, — to name but the most widely 
known of all. These are not prizes to be dismissed 
lightly. 

My pride compels me to add (in parenthesis, as it 
were, for I had not meant to write about it here) that 
I own not only the Mrs. Glasse, but the Ccelius Apicius. 
It is, in the 1498 edition, a beautiful book, printed m 
the Roman type "William Morris approved and copied 
for the Kehnscott Press, the page harmoniously spaced, 
with noble margins, a place left at the beginning of 
divisions for the illuminator's capitals, and the paper 
tenderly toned with age. My copy is in surprisingly 
good condition, — not a tear or a stain anywhere. It 
has an interesting pedigree. Dr. BlacMe's autograph 
and the bookplate of Dr. Klotz, the German collector, 
are on the fly-leaf. But it has no title-page ! How- 
ever, even in its mutilated state it is rare, and, though 
I cannot read it, — I went to school before the days of 
the higher education for women, and to a convent, so 
that all the Latin I learnt was the Ave and the Pater, 
the Credo and the Confiteor, — I look upon it as the 
corner stone of my collection. 



8 

Still, I am not like Dibdin's Philemon, and I like to 
read my books. It is another of the good qualities of 
the cookery book that when you can read it, it makes 
the best reading in the world. For this pleasure I must 
come to my shelf of the seventeenth-century English 
books; mostly small duodecimos in shabby battered calf, 
one in shabbier battered velliun, their pages browned 
and stained with constant use. It must not be thought 
that my collection leaps in this disjointed fashion from 
century to century. Some very rare and quaint six- 
teenth-century Italian books are the link between these 
duodecimos and the Apicius; but to interpret them I 
need a dictionary at my elbow. Besides, they have been 
well cared for by the bibliographer, and I want to show 
first, what has not been shown before, how delightful 
the old cookery book is as a book to read, not merely 
to catalogue or to keep handy on the kitchen dresser. 
I pass over also the printed copies of early poems 
and works, preserved in famous historical manuscripts, 
and edited in the last century by Dr. Pegge and other 
scholars, in our day chiefly by Dr. Purnivall and the 
Early English Text Society. Though I consider them 
as indispensable as Apicius, and though I own the 



9 

Forme of Cury and the Liber Cure Cocorum and the 
Noble Book of Cookery, and the rest, they are to be 
classed with Charles Lamb's books that are not books, 
so difficult are they to all but the expert. Unfortu- 
nately, I have none of the sixteenth-century English 
books, of which HazUtt gives a Ket of eight. Perhaps 
they were issued in very small editions j more proba- 
bly, they were so popular that, like the early romances 
from Caxton's and from Wynkyn de "Worde's press, 
they were "thumbed out of existence." After 1600 the 
supply seems to have been larger, no doubt because of 
the growing demand, and more copies have survived. 
Most of the cookery books of the seventeenth century 
went through several editions; not even Cromwell and 
the Puritans could check their popularity; and I Hke to 
think, when I turn over their thin, soiled, torn pages, 
that many people read them not solely for information, 
but for pleasure, hke Pepys, that fine summer day when, 
his wife safe in the country, he carried his ladies to the 
king's pleasure boat, and then down the river, between 
the great wharves and the shipping, " aE the way read- 
ing in a book of Receipts of making fine meats and 
sweetmeats . . . which made us good sport." 



10 

For Pepys, to whom, as Stevenson puts it, the whole 
world was a Garden of Armida, "infinite delight" 
lurked as naturally in a recipe as in his first periwig, or 
the nightingales at Yauxhall, or a lesson in arithmetic, 
or whatever else it might be. For us, of less buoyant 
temperament, if there be infinite delight, it is due, above 
all, to the magic of the past and the charm of associ- 
ation. StateUness and elegance were the order of the 
day in the seventeenth century. The men, who ar- 
rayed themselves in gorgeous clothes, spoke la the 
rotmded periods that were in keeping, — in the " bro- 
caded language" of Mr. Gosse's expressive phrase. 
And the cookery books are full of this brocaded lan- 
guage, full of extravagant conceits, full of artificial 
ornament; a lover writing to his mistress, you would 
say, rather than a cook or a housewife giving practical 
directions. After the modern recipe, blunt to the point 
of brutality; after the "Take so much of this, add so 
much of that, and boil, roast, fry," as the dull case may 
be, each fresh extravagance, each fresh affectation, is 
as enchanting as the crook of Lely's ladies or the Silvio 
of Herrick's verse. I should not want to try the re- 
cipes, so appalling often is the combination of savories 



11 

and sweets, so colossal the proportions. But they were 
written by artists who had as pretty a talent for turning 
a phrase as for inventing a new dish. Rose leaves and 
saffron, musk and " amber-greece," orange flower and 
angelica, are scattered through them, until it seems as 
if the feast could have been spread only for PhiUis or 
Anthea. And no water can be poured into their pots 
that is not " fair," few blossoms chosen as ingredients 
that are not "pleasing." Cakes are "pretty conceits," 
and are garnished " according to art." If cider leaves 
its dregs, these are " naughty," and a sweet is recom- 
mended because it " comf orteth the Stomach and Heart." 
The names of the dishes are a joy : the tanzies of vio- 
lets or cowshps, and the orangado phraises; the sylla- 
bubs and the frumenties, — " all-tempting Frumenty; " 
the wiggs and the pasties; the eggs in moonshine; the 
conserves of red roses ; the possets without end, almost 
as lyrical as the poet's, made 

"With cream of lilies, not of kine. 
And maiden's blush for spiced wine." 

And the drinks: metheglin, — do we not know to the 
day the date of Pepys' first "brave cup" of it? — 



m 

meath, hydromel, hypocras, — a word that carries one 
to the GuildhaU buttery, a certain Lord Mayor's Day, 
where Pepys is gayly tippUng; hypocras "being to the 
best of my present judgment only a mixed compound 
drink, and not any wine," which he had forsworn by 
solemn vow. " If I am mistaken, God forgive me ! but 
I hope and do think I am not." Who would not share 
Pepys' easy conscience? Hypocras was "only," Dr. 
Twin's way, a strong compound of spice and herbs and 
sugar steeped for days in a gallon of good Khenish 
wine; in very good claret wine, Giles Eose's way. 
All the cookery books of the century are written in this 
brocaded language, all reveal the same pleasant fancy, 
all contain the same pretty dishes and strange drinks. 
But still, they have their differences that divide them ' 
into three distinct classes. Many are simply the old fam- 
ily manuscript collection of recipes, at that period com- 
mon in every household of importance, put into print; 
to a few the master cook gives the authority of his name 
and experience; while there are others in which cook- 
ery is but one of several arts " exposed " by the accom- 
plished women, to whom curing leprosy was as simple as 
cooking a dinner, killing rats as ordinary a pastime as 



IS 

making wax flowers, and who had altogether attained a 
degree of omniscience that the modern contributor to 
a ladies' paper might well envy. 

The old manuscript collection of recipes has that touch 
of romance we feel in a bit of half -worn embroidery or 
a faded sampler. The fragrance of rosemary and thyme 
lingers about its leaves. It is full of memories of the 
stilh'oom and the cool, spacious pantry. I have two or 
three, bought before I reahzed into what depths of bank- 
ruptcy I should plunge if I added manuscripts to my 
printed books. I have seen many others. In all, the 
tone and quality of the paper would make the etcher 
sigh for the waste, while the handwriting — sometimes 
prim, sometimes distinguished, sometimes sprawhng — 
represents generations of careful housewives. The col- 
lection, evidently, has grown at hap-hazard: the new 
dish eaten at a neighbor's, jotted down before its secret 
is forgotten; the new recipe brought by a friend, en- 
tered while she is still by to answer for its accuracy. 
The style is easy and confidential; it abounds in little 
asides and parentheses; and always credit is given 
where credit is due ! This, you are assured, is " Lady 
Dorchester's cake " or " Lady Pitzharding's nun's bis- 



u 

ket; " these are " Lady Kent's brown Almonds " or 
" Lady Compton's preserved Barf ord pipins ; " and you 
must not mistake for any other " Mrs. Oldfield's lemon 
cream " or " Mrs. Brereton's colours for marble cake." 
Now and then, as if to lend a professional air, a famous 
chef is cited, — Bartolomeo Scappi or Robert May, — 
but this is seldom. And as a housekeeper, in those days, 
had to know how to relieve an indigestion as well as 
how to make the dish that caused it; as she was, in a 
word, the family or village doctor, medical prescriptions 
are mingled with the recipes. As like as not, a cake or 
cream is wedged between " Aqua Mirabilis, Sir Kellam 
Digby's way," and "A most excellent Water for ye 
Stone; " or an " Arrangement of Cucumbers" separates 
Dr. Graves's " Receipt for Convulsion Fitts " from " A 
Plague Water." 

In the printed books of the seventeenth century there is 
an attempt at classification. " Incomparable Secrets in 
Physick and Chirurgery," if revealed, form a section 
apart; but in other respects those I have put in the first 
class share the characteristics of the manuscripts. Their 
titles at once point to their origin. Almost all are Closets 
or Cabinets opened. There are exceptions. I have a 



THE 

COMPLEAT 

COOK. 

Expertly prefcribing the 

moft ready waycs, 

ritahan^ 
WhethcrX5/>d»i]J&j 
cor French, 

For dreffing o£F/e/7;',and Fifh^ 

Ordennsof Sauces^ ormaking- 
O F 

PASTRY. 



Louv om 

Printed (or Nath. Brook at the] 
An^el'mCortt-hill^ 1655. 



15 

fascinating Compleat Cook, a tiny volume, neatly bound 
in calf, "expertly prescribing the most ready wayes, whe- 
ther Itahan, Spanish, or French, For dressing of Flesh 
and Fish, Ordering of Sauces, or making of Pastry," 
which was printed for Nathaniel Brook, the great pub- 
hsher of cookery books, at the Angel in Cornhill, 1655. 
I have also two Dehghts : one " printed by R. Y. and are 
to bee sold by James Boler 1632," with a sadly defaced 
title-page, upon which little is legible save the sage 
advice, " Reade, practise, and Censure ; " and another 
of 1683, " printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of 
the black Bear in St. Pauls Churchyard." I have also a 
Pearl of Practice, and Hartman's True Preserver and 
Restorer of Health. But Closet or Cabmet is the more 
frequent title. When the name of the author does not 
appear, it is usually the Queen's Delight of which there is 
question, the Queen's Closet or Cabinet which is opened. 
In my first edition of The Queen's Closet Opened, pub- 
hshed by the same pubhsher, ISTathaniel Brook, and ia the 
same year, 1655, as The Compleat Cook, the title-page 
states that these are the Incomparable Secrets " as they 
were presented to the Queen by the most Experienced 
Persons of our times, many whereof were honoured with 



16 

her own practice, when she pleased to descend to these 
most private Kecreations ; " and that they were " Tran- 
scribed from the true Copies of her Majesties own Re- 
ceipt Books, by W. M. one of her late servants." In my 
later edition of 1668, a portrait of Henrietta Maria, — 
most hkely a copy from Hollar, — severe in feature and 
drees, faces the title-page, much to my satisfaction; for, 
if the book turns up every now and then in booksellers' 
catalogues, mine is the only copy in which I have yet 
seen the portrait. When the name of the author does 
appear, it is usually one of great distinction. There is a 
" Ladies Cabinet Opened by the Rt Hon. and Learned 
Chymist, Lord Ruthven, containing Many Rare Secrets 
and Rich Ornaments of several kindes and different 
Uses." My copy, published in 1655, by Bedell and Col- 
lins, at the Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street, is, alas, a 
second edition; 1639 is the year of the first. But the 
second has the advantage of containing the most gallant 
of prefaces. " Courteous Ladies," it begins ; and it ends, 
" I shall thus leave you at Hberty as Lovers in Gardens, 
to follow your own fancies. Take what you like, and de- 
light in your choice, and leave what you hst to him whose 
labour is not lost if anything please." Another Closet, 



QiaEENs" CLOSET I 

OPENED- 

Incomparable Secrets in 
Thyfick^ Cbimrgery, Tre- 

ftrving^ Candying^ and Ceokerj 5 
As they were prefcnted to the 

QJU EE D^ 

By them oft Experienced Pcrfons of 
our times, many whereof were honoa. 
red Wfirh her own prafticc, when (he 
pleafed Co defcend to ihefe more private 
Recreations. 



Never before fuhltj^ed. 

Tranfcribcd from the true Copies of her 
MAJESTIES own Receipt- Books, 
by w.M. one of her late I'crvants. 

Fivitfo^funer* iHrtw,- 



Printed for 7^thaniel Breok^ at the Attget 



Ii'rintea ror jxjthantei ttroon^ a 
in Cernhill, 1653;. 



17 

"Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of 
Metheglin, Cherry- Wine, etc., together with Excellent 
Directions for Cookery," was opened by no less a person 
than Sir Kenelm Digby, whose " name does suflSciently 
auspicate the Work," as his son, who published it, writes 
in an inimitable preface. As he appears in Yandyck's 
portrait. Sir Kenelm Digby is so very elegant with his 
shining armor, so very intellectual with his broad expanse 
of forehead, that one would as soon expect to hear of 
Lord Sahsbury or Mr. Balfour writing a cookery book. 
His Closet has no place in Vicaire's BibUography, nor 
in HazHtt's; I have often wondered why; for, of all, it 
is my favorite. I agree with his delightful son that it 
" needs no Rhetorical Floscules to set it off," so pleasant 
is the thought of this " arrant mountebank," as Evelyn 
called him, — this " romantic giant," as later kinder crit- 
ics have it, — in the intervals between his duties as chan- 
cellor to the queen mother, and his intrigues for the 
Church, and his adventures as Theagenes, and his studies 
as astrologer, and his practice as amateur physician, sit- 
ting quietly at his desk writing out his recipes, as care- 
fully as any master cook or scrupulous housewife. 
IS'ot only are these Closets and Cabinets and Dehghts as 



18 

sweet with rosemary and thyme and musk as the manu- 
scripts; they are as exact in referring every dish to its 
proper authority, they retain the tone of intimacy, they 
abound in personal confidences. " My Lady Middlesex 
makes Syllabubs for little glasses with spouts, thus," you 
read in one collection; in another, " My Lady Glin useth 
her Yenison Pasties" in such and such a fashion; in a 
third, that "this is the way the Countess de Penalva 
makes Portuguez eggs for the Queen." The adjectives 
have the value of a personal recommendation : " The 
most kindley way to preserve plums, cherries, and goose- 
berries;" "A most Excellent Sirup of Violets both in 
taste and tincture; " " A singular Manner of making the 
Sirup of Roses ; " " another sort of Marmalade very com- 
fortable for any Lord or Lady Whatsoever; " " An ex- 
cellent conceit upon the kernels of dry Walnuts." The 
medicines receive equal tenderness : "An exceeding fine 
Pill used for the Gout; " " a delicate Stove to sweat in; " 
" The Gift of God, praise be to Him, for all manners of 
sores; " "A Precious Water to Revive the Spirits." Who 
would not swallow a dozen such pills and gifts and wa- 
ters, or sweat a dozen times in such a stove, without a 
murmur ! But it is the confidential manner that I adore. 



19 

The compiler of the little vellum-bound Delight is for- 
ever taking you into his confidence. He revels in hints 
and innuendoes: "There is a Country Gentlewoman 
whom I could name, which" does so and soj or " This of 
a Kinde Gentlewoman whose skill I doe highly commend 
and whose case I do greatly pity ; " and you divine all 
sorts of social mysteries. He has sudden outbursts of 
generosity : " I have robbed my wives Dairy of this se- 
cret, who hath hitherto refused all recompenses that have 
been offered her by gentlewomen for the same, and had 
I loved a Cheese myself so well as I like the receipt, I 
think I could not so easily have imparted the same at 
this time. And yet, I must needs confesse, that for the 
better gracing of the Title, wherewith I have fronted this 
pamphlet, I have been willing to publish this with some 
other secrets of worth, for the which I have been many 
times refused good store both of crowns and angels. 
And therefore let no Gentlewoman think this Booke too 
deare, at what price soever it shall be valued upon the sale 
thereof, neither can I esteem the worke to be of lesse than 
twenty years gatherings." And people think the art of 
self-advertisement was evolved but yesterday 1 Sir Ken- 
ehn Digby is the great master of this confidential style. 



20 

If he gives my Lady Hungerford's meath, he must ex- 
plain that she sent him special word that "She now useth 
(and liketh better) a second Decoction of Herbs," which 
he also conscientiously records. If he recommends a sec- 
ond meath, it is because a certain chief burgomaster of 
Antwerp, for many years, drank it, and nothing else, " at 
meals and all times, even for pledging of Healths. And 
though he was of an extraordinary vigour every way, and 
had every year a child, had always a great appetite and 
good digestion, and yet was not fat." He is at pains to 
assure you that though Mr. Webbe, probably a master 
cook, did use to put in a few cloves and mace in the king's 
meath, "the King did not care for them; " that the " Hy- 
dromel, as I made it weak for the Queen Mother was 
exceedingly liked by everybody; " that Sir Edward Bain- 
ton's metheglin, " My Lord of Portland (who gave it me) 
saith was the best he ever drank;" that for his strange 
dish of tea and eggs, Mr. Waller's advice is that " the wa- 
ter is to remain upon the tea no longer than while you 
can say the Miserere Psalm very leisurely." I sometimes 
think, if I were in need of bedside books, — which I am 
thankful to say I am not, — I should give my choice, not 
to Montaigne and Howell with Thackeray, but to Sir Ken- 



21 

elm Digby and the other openers of the old Closets and 
Cabinets.^ 

The success of these books may have helped to drive the 
English cook into authorship. The artist has not always 
the patience to be silent while the amateur dogmatizes 
upon his art. There is a suggestion of revolt in the pre- 
face Eobert May, the " Accomplisht Cook," addressed 
to his fellow practitioners. " I acknowledge," he says, 
" that there hath already been several Books publisht 
. . . for aught I could perceive to httle purpose, empty 
and unprofitable Treatises, of as little use as some Nig- 
gards Kitchen, which the Reader, in respect of the con- 
fusion of the Method, or barrenness of those Authours 
Experience, hath rather been puzzled, than profited by." 
Mock humility has never been the characteristic of the 
cook. He has always respected himself as the pivot of 
civilization. Other men, at times, have shared this re- 
spect with him. The Greeks crowned him with gold and 

^ I am not sure that I would not add Gervase Markham's Eng- 
lish Housewife (1631) and Dr. Muffett's Healths Improvement 
(1655). Markham is, perhaps, the prettiest and most graceful of 
all these writers. But both books have come into my collection 
only recently, since this chapter was written. 



22 

flowers. He went clothed in velvet, wearing a gold chain, 
in Wolsey's day. And in between, during the Eoman 
rule, during ages of dark and mediaeval barbarity, the 
ceremonial of dinner and its serving testified that the 
light of truth still glimmered, if dimly. But none ever 
understood so well as he the full dignity of his profession. 
" A modest Master Cook must be looked on as a contra- 
diction in Nature," was a doctrine in the classical kitchen. 
By the middle of the seventeenth century Vatel ruled in 
France, and in England every distinguished chef was 
ready to swear, with Ben Jonson's Master-Cook in the 
Masque, that 

" A boiler, range, and dresser were the fountains 
Of all the knowledge in the universe ; " 

that the school of cookery, that " deep School," is 

" Both the nurse and mother of the Arts." 
Imagine his dismay, then, when the amateur began to 
masquerade before the world as artist. Had Sir Kenelm 
Digby ever turned out as much as a posset or a syllabub, 
could Lord Euthven, the learned, make a peacock to 
look like a porcupine, or an entremose of a swan, that 
either should strut his little day as an authority ? Only 
the artist has the right to speak on his art. And as Leo- 



2S 

nardo had written his treatises, as Keynolds was later 
to dehver his discourses, so Eobert May, Will Eabisha, 
Giles Rose, and others, perhaps, whom I have not in my 
collection, began to publish books upon cookery. Jeal- 
ousy of the Frenchman may have been an additional in- 
centive. France had already the reputation for delicate 
dining which she has never lost, and the noble lord or 
lady who patronized the young apprentice sent him for 
his training across the Channel. May and Rabisha had 
both served their term in French households. But it was 
another matter when the French chef's book was trans- 
lated into Enghsh, and threatened to rob the Enghsh 
cook of his glory at home. May's preface is full of sneers 
at the " Epigram Dishes " with which the French "have 
bewitched some of the Gallants of our Nation^ 
Whatever the cook's motive in writing, he gave his book 
a character all its own. The actual dishes and drinks 
may be those of Closets and Cabinets, but the tone of 
intimacy disappears from the recipe; no name but the 
author's vouches for the merits of a dish; the writer is 
no longer on a level of equality with his readers, but 
addresses them from a higher plane, the plane of know- 
ledge. There is no mistaking the air of authority. Offi- 



24 

cers of the Mouth receive their inetnictions, and irre- 
sistible httle cuts of birds of strange shape, and Joints 
of no shape at all, devices for pies and pastry, are intro- 
duced as a giiide to the Carver and Sewer. JS'othing is 
neglected, from the building up of those magnificent — 
the adjective is May's — triumphs and trophies, those 
subtleties, as elaborate as Inigo Jones's setting of a 
masque, that were " the delights of the Nobility," to the 
folding of " all sorts of Table-linen in all sorts of Fig- 
ures, a neat and gentill Art," much in vogue. And 
throughout, the writer never forgets his own impor- 
tance. He is as serious as Montaigne's Italian chef, who 
talked of cooMng with the gravity of the theologian and 
in the language of the statesman. His style is as fan- 
tastic as that of the cook in HoweU's letter to Lady Cot- 
tington. He "will teU your Ladyship," Howell writes, 
" that the reverend Matron, the Olla podrida hath Litel- 
lectiTals and Senses; Mutton, Beef, and Bacon are to her 
as the Will, Understanding, and Memory are to the Soul; 
Cabbages, Turnips, Artichokes, Potatoes, and Dates 
are her five Senses, and Pepper the Common-sense; she 
must have Marrow to keep Life in her, and some Birds 
to make her light; by all means she must go adorned with 
Chains of Sausages." 



25 

The very title of the cook's treatise was a marvel of bom- 
bast. Eobert May's — the book was first pubhshed in 
1660, by Il^athaniel Brook — must be given in full : " The 
Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of Cookery. 
"Wherein the whole Art is revealed ra a more easie and 
perfect Method, than hath been pubhsht in any Lan- 
guage. Expert and ready wayes for the Dressing of aU 
sorts of Flesh, Fowl and Fish : The Raising of Pastes ; 
the best Directions for aE manner of Kickshaws, and 
the most Poinant Sauces; with the Tearms of Carving 
and Sewing. An exact Account of aU Dishes for the 
Season; with other A la mode Curiosities. Together 
with the lively Illustrations of such necessary Figures as 
are referred to Practice. Approved by the Fifty Years 
Experience and Industry of Robert May, ia his Attend- 
ance on several Persons of Honour." Let me quote just 
one other, for though it is as long, it is also as irresistible. 
The book is WiU Rabisha's ; the date, 1673 ; the publisher, 
E. Calvert at the sign of the Black Spread Eagle at 
the West End of St. Paul's; and the title: " The whole 
Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and fully mani- 
fested. Methodically, Artificially, and according to the 
best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch 



26 

etc. Or, a Sympathy of all varieties in Natural Com- 
pounds in that Mysterie. "Wherein is contained certain 
Bills of Fare for the Seasons of the year, for Feasts 
and Common Diets. Wherunto is annexed a Second 
Part of Eare Eeceipts of Cookery: with certain useful 
Traditions. With a book of Preserving, Conserving and 
Candying, after the most Exquisite and jS'ewest manner: 
Delectable for Ladies and Gentlewomen." A title, this, 
that recalls Dorothy Osborne's coxcombs who " labour 
to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense." 
The note may be pitched high, but not too high for the 
grandiloquent flights that follow. Dedications, prefaces, 
introductory poems, are in harmony, and as ornate with 
capitals and italics as the dishes are with spices and 
sweets. The Accomplisht Cook is further " embellished " 
with May's portrait : a large, portly person, with heavy 
face, but determined mouth, wearing his own hair, 
though I hope he lived long enough to take, hke Pepys, 
to a periwig, so weU would it have become him. Below 
the portrait, verses, engraved on the plate, declare with 
poetic confusion that, 

" Would'st thou view but in one face. 
All hospitalitie, the race 



riFFWi 




^y'^Vjiat'^ v'oiiUyt tha uuf.r hut in onefuce 
all hiyriti/iliiie tlw nne , 
,£ftw/c' that Jor tlw G try to stand, 
wnn-se t/ihlcs -^ wiiole ^Arh comand 
ofy{uiureii^Lntu: vjould.rt tnoli fit , : 
\ ttiu Jig ht, vcrufe Ma ij.s; bM h'^^hrjict^;^ 



f 



27 

Of those that for the Gusto stand, 
Whose tables a whole Ark comand 
Of Nature's plentie, would'st thou see 
This sight, peruse May's booke,'t is hee." 

A few pages further on there is another panegyric in 
verse, " on the unparallel'd Piece of Mr. May, his Cook- 
ery," and an appeal " to the Reader of (my very loving 
Friend) Mr. Robert May, his incomparable Book of 
Cookery," by an admirer who thinks only the pen 

" Of famous Cleaveland or renowned Ben, 
If unintooni'd might give this Book its due." 

Win Rabisha has but one poet to sing his praise ; he, 
however, does it thoroughly : — 

" Brave Book, into the world begone. 
Thou vindicatest thy Authour fearing none. 
That ever was, or is, or e're shall be 
Able to find the parallel of thee." 

The dedications are obsequious for such great men, but 
obsequiousness in dedications was the fashion of the day. 
May's book is dedicated not alone to Sir Kenelm Digby, 
but to Lord Lumley, Lord Lovelace, Sir Wilham Paston, 
Sir Frederick Comwallis, all of whom, with the exception 



28 

of Lord Lovelace, contributed to Sir Kenelm Digby's 
collection of recipes. " The Maecenas's and Patrons of 
this Generous Art," May calls them, in a rhetorical out- 
burst. Eabisha, on the other hand, pays his tribute to 
two " illustrious duchesses," and three " renowned, sin- 
gular good, and vertuous Ladies," to whose " boundless 
unspeakable virtues " he would do the honor that in him 
lies. May was the "most humbly devoted servant to 
their Lordships," and Eabisha the " poor, unworthy ser- 
vant till death " of their graces and ladyships. But this 
was mere posing. The real man in May comes out when 
he addresses as "Most "Worthy Artists" the master 
cooks and young practitioners to whom he hopes his 
book will be useful; when he explains that he writes 
because "God and my own Conscience would not permit 
me to bury these my Experiences with my Silver Hairs 
in the Grave." No one shall say of him that he " hid 
his Candle under a Bushel." It is the real Eabisha who 
dwells upon the " Many years study and practice in the 
Art and Mysterie of Cookery " that are his qualifications 
as author, and the duty of " the ingenious men of all Arts 
and Sciences to hold forth to Posterity what light or 
knowledge " they understand to be obscure in their art. 



29 

The same spirit betrays itseK here and there in the re- 
cipes. "The fruits and flowers that you make white 
must be kept in a dry place," writes Giles Rose, or his 
translator, " if you will keep them for your credit and 
honoui'." For your credit and honor ! There spoke the 
artist. Or again, for the whipping of cream, your whisk 
" ought to be made of the fine small twigs of Birch, or 
such like wood neatly peeled, and tied up in quantity a 
little bigger than your thmnb, and the smaU ends must 
be cut off a little, for fear of breaking in your cream, 
and so you come to be made ashamed." That is the 
kind of thing, as Stevenson says, that reconciles one to 
Hf e ! The flamboyant recipes, the monumental menus, 
are amusing; but what I love best in my cookery books 
is the " vanity of the artist " that is their inspiration. 
It was the vanity of the superior woman that inspired 
Mrs. Hannah Woolley, now forgotten by an ungrateful 
world. In 1670 she published The Queen-Like Closet 
or Rich Cabinet, with a Supplement added in 1674, that 
eclipsed all the Treasuries and Guides and Practices 
for Ladies that had already appeared, as it excels those 
that, later on, were to take it ae model. It is the only 
seventeenth-century book of the kind in my collection; 



30 

but were the others on the shelf with it, I should still 
turn to Mrs. "Woolley as the perfect type of the Univer- 
sal Provider of her age and generation. She was sim- 
ply amazing, as no one knew better than herseK. Like 
Eobert May, she did not beheve in hiding her candle 
under a bushel; but where May wrote for the greater 
honor of his art, she wrote for the greater honor of her- 
self. Even had she pined for the peace of obscurity, — 
which she did not, — her remarkable talents had made 
her conspicuous since childhood. Before she was fifteen 
she had been the mistress of a little school, — she teUs 
the tale herself, — where she continued till the age of 
seventeen, " when my extraordinary parts appeared more 
splendid in the eyes of a noble lady in this Kingdom than 
really they deserved, and she greedily entertained me in 
her house as Governess of her only Daughter." Then, 
at -the death of the first lady, this prodigy was as greed- 
ily appropriated by a second, and presently " gained so 
great an esteem among the Nobility and Gentry of two 
Counties, that I was necessitated to yield to the impor- 
tunity of one I dearly lov'd, that I might free myself 
from the tedious caresses of many more." As, before 
she had done with fife, she had been married to "two 



81 

Worthy Eminent and brave Persons," it is uncertain 
whether the first or the second " dearly loved " was Mr. 
Richard WooUey, " Master of Arts and Reader at St. 
Martin, Ludgate." The one thing certain is that it was 
from his house, in the Old Bailey in Golden Cup Court, 
she addressed the female sex, to whom her books — she 
wrote three in all — were to be a guide " in all Relations, 
Companies, Conditions, and States of Life, even from 
Childhood down to Old Age ; and from the Lady at the 
Court to the Cook-maid in the Country." There is a por- 
trait of her in one of the books : a large, pompous wo- 
man, with heavy bimches of curls on either side her face, 
in a low velvet gown and pearls, who looks fit to tackle 
anything. And indeed, it must be said of her that she 
never shrank from duty. She even stooped to poetry, 
since it was the fashion to introduce it in the beginning 
of all such books, and her rhymes are surprisingly frivo- 
lous and jingling for so severe a lady. " I shall now give 
you," is her introduction to the Supplement, which she 
rightly calls A Little of Every Thing, — "I shall now 
give you some Directions for Washing Black and White 
Sarsnet, or Coloured Silhs ; Washing of Points, Laces, 
or the like ; starching of Tiffanies, making clean Plate, 



82 

cleaning of Gold and Silver Lace, washing Silk Stock- 
ings, adorning of Closets with several pretty Fancies; 
things excellent to keep the Sands "White and Face and 
Fyes clear; how to make Transparent Work, and the 
Colours thereto belonging; also Puff Work; some more 
Eeceipts for Preserving and cookery; some Remedies 
for such Ailments as are incident to all People ; as Corns, 
Sore JEyes, Cut Fingers, Bruises, Bleeding at Nose ; all 
these you may help by my directions, with a small mat- 
ter of cost ; whereas else you may be at a great charge 
and long Trouble, and perhaps endanger your Eyes or 
Limbs. I shall give you none but such things as I have 
had many years experience of with good success, I 
praise God." 

Nor does this exhaust her resources. She offers, for " a 
reasonable Gratuity," to find good places for servants 
who will call upon her at Golden Cup Court. She is as 
full of stories of the astounding cures she has wrought 
as the manufacturer of a patent pill. She writes letters 
to serve as models, so many does she meet with that she 
could tear as she reads, " they are so full of impertiaency 
and so tedious." She has advice for parents and children 
which " may prevent much wickedness for the future." 



88 

She teaches waxwork. On one page she is dressing the 
hearth for summer time ; on the next playing the art 
master, for she has seen " such ridiculous things done 
as is an abomination to an Artist to behold." As for ex- 
ample : " You may find in some Pieces, Abraham and 
Sarah, and many other Persons of Old Time, cloathed 
as they go now adaies, and truly sometimes worse." And 
that the female sex — and, as we know from the exam- 
ples of Mrs. Pepys and Pegg Penn, the female sex was 
then busy painting — may not fall into similar error, she 
informs them of both the visage and habit of the heroes 
they, in their modesty, will be most apt to paint. Thus, 
" If you work Jupiter, the Imperial feigned God, He must 
have long Black-Cm-led hair, a Purple Garment trimmed 
with Gold, and sitting upon a Golden Throne, with bright 
yellow Clouds about him ; " or, if it be Hymen, the God 
of Marriage, you must work him "with long YeUow Hair 
in a Purple or Saffron-Coloured Mantle." There was 
nothing this ornament to her sex was afraid to teach. 
To judge from the condition of my copy of The Queen- 
Like Closet, she was not unappreciated. The title-page 
has gone ; the dog's-ears and stains and tatters might 
make one weep, were they not such an admirable testi- 



84. 

monial. In 1678 it was presented to Mary Halfpenny 
by " Brother John Halfpeimy when he was at Trinity 
College," and the fly-leaves are covered with her own 
recipes for syllabubs and gooseberry wine, for orange 
pudding and "plane" cake; and there is on one page 
a valuable note from her, to the effect that the time of 
mushrooms is about the middle of September. Later, at 
some imknown date, the book became the property of 
Anna Warden ; and about the middle of the next century 
it answered the purpose of family Bible to the Keeling 
family, so that I know to the hour when Thomas and 
Eebecca, children of James and Rebecca, were bom, — 
destined to grow up and prosper, I hope, imder the large 
and benevolent guidance of Hannah Woolley. I have 
never had the luck of the French collector who picked 
up Rousseau's copy of the Imitation of Christ, with the 
famous periwinkle from Les Charmettes pressed between 
the pages. But I prize even these modest names and 
notes on a fly-leaf or a margin ; for me, they add a dis- 
tinctly personal charm to the shabby little old cookery 
book. 

Personal charm enough it has in itself, you might say, 
when it belongs to the seventeenth century. The eigh- 



85 

teenth-centmy books are not without fascination and 
character, but they have lost something of the fresh- 
ness, the naivete, the exuberance, of youth ; the style is 
more sophisticated; the personality of the author is kept 
more in the background. May and Eabisha, Giles Rose 
and Hannah Woolley, are so entertaining in their self- 
revelations, they teU us so much of their age, besides 
the manner of its cookery, that the wonder is they should 
be cheerfully ignored, now that Howell and Evelyn and 
Pepys are household names. 



N. 



II 



EXT to eating good dinners, a healthy man with 
a benevolent turn of mind must like, I think, to read 
about them." The words are Thackeray's, and they en- 
courage me, if I need encouragement, in my behef that 
to go on writing about my Cookery Books is a duty I 
owe not only to myself, but to the world. 
If I have owned to a sneaking preference for the httle 
calf and vellvim covered duodecimos of the seventeenth 
century, courteous and gallant as the Stuart days to 
which they belong, I should lose no time in adding that 
it is to the eighteenth century I am indebted for the great 
treasure of my collection, — Mrs. Glasse in the famous 
" pot folio " of the first edition. The copy belonged, as 
I have explained, to George Augustus Sala, and came 
up for sale when his library was disposed of at Sotheby's 
in the July of 1896. This hbrary was a disappouitment 
to most people, — to none more than to me. I had heard 
much of Sala's cookery books, but small as my collec- 
tion then was I found only three that I had not already. 
Bartolomeo Scappi's Cuoco Secreto, in fine binding, but 



37 

not in the first edition (which I secured a year or two 
after) ; The Delmonico Cook Book, and excellent it is ; 
and Mrs. Glasee, — The Art of Cookery, Made Plain 
and Easy; Which far exceeds any Thing of the Kind 
ever yet Published, to give her book its full title. In the 
preliminary paragraphs that went the round of the press, 
Mrs. Glasse alone received the honor of special men- 
tion; in that dingy httle salesroom in WeUington Street, 
where, however high passions — and prices — may run, 
the group at the table seem to have come together for 
nothing more exciting than a sociable nap, Mrs. Glasse 
again held the place of honor in a glass case apart. 
Everything pointed to a struggle. It would take a 
braver woman than I to face the " knock-outs " and 
" rings " before which the private buyer is said to be as 
a lamb led to the slaughter. When the day of the sale 
came, like royalty at important functions, I was " repre- 
sented " at Sotheby's, and myself stayed at home with 
my emotions. The sequel is known. Is not the book on 
my shelves ? It came that same evening, the two others 
with it. " I am pleased," wrote my representative, " to 
be able to send you the three books, and all below your 



38 

limit, and hope you will be satisfied." Satisfied ? "Was 
there ever a wonian yet to whom a bargain was not half 
the joy of possession ? 

Sala, it was currently reported, valued the book at five 
hundred dollars ; I paid but fifty. It was not because 
he overestimated its rarity. The first edition is almost 
as rare as he thought. On the fly-leaf of his copy he 
wrote, July, 1876, that only three others were known to 
be ia existence : one at the British Museum, a second 
at the Bodleian, and a third in the library of a country 
clergyman. Since then only two others, to my know- 
ledge, have materialized. But Sala was a vandal ; his 
copy was evidently in a shocking state when he found 
it, in a barrow in a South London slum according to the 
legend, and he had the battered and torn pages mended, 
and the book bound in substantial and expensive, if in- 
appropriate binding. So far, so good. Still he also had 
it interleaved. He seems to have believed that his own 
trivial newspaper correspondence on the subject, care- 
fully pasted in, would increase its value. How often have 
I looked at the book and decided, at whatever cost, to 
get rid of the interleaving and the newspaper cKppings, 
an insult alike to Mrs. Glasse and myself ! How often 



39 

have I decided that to reduce it to its original elim- 
ness would be to destroy its pedigree ; not a very distin- 
guished pedigree, but still the copy was known m the 
auction room as Sala's, and, therefore, as Sala's must it 
not remain ? Whoever can settle this problem for me 
will lift a burden of responsibility from shoulders not 
strong enough to bear it. 

Now I have the first edition, I do not mind admitting 
that no other treatise on cookery owes its reputation so 
httle to merit, so much to chance. It was popular in 
its own day, I grant you. The Biographical Diction- 
ary says that, except the Bible, it had the greatest sale 
in the language. It went into edition after edition. 
There are ten in the British Musemn. I own six myself, 
though I vowed that the first sufficed for my wants. 
The book was repubUshed in Edinburgh. It was revived 
as late as 1852, perhaps later still, for all I as yet know. 
But almost aU the eighteenth-century books shared its 
popularity, — only the Biographical Dictionary has not 
happened to hear of them. I have The Compleat 
Housewife, by E. Smith, in the eighteenth edition ; I 
have Elizabeth Moxon's English Housewife, in the thir- 
teenth ; I have John Farley's London Art of Cookery, 



40 

in the eleventh, and I might go on through a list of 
titles and authors long forgotten by every one but me. 
All are as amusing now as the Art of Cookery, and 
were probably very useful in their day. The receipts 
are much the same ; indeed, the diligence with which 
the authorities upon cookery in the eighteenth century 
borrowed one from the other, without a word of acknow- 
ledgment, ought to have kept the law courts busy, l^or 
does the manner vary more than the matter. Of most 
of the books the authors could say as truthfully as Mrs. 
Glasse of hers, that they were " not wrote in the high 
polite stile." Kot even her sex gives Mrs. Glasse dis- 
tinction in an age when authorship or public practice 
of any sort was indelicate in a female. Mary Eale, E. 
Smith, Ehzabeth Eaff aid, — a charming person in a mob 
cap, if you can trust her portrait, — Charlotte Mason, 
Elizabeth Cleland, Martha Bradley, were a few of her 
many rivals. And where are they now ? 

" Where 's Hipparchia, and where is Thais ? " 
If Mrs. Glasse alone survives, it is for one reason only, 
and that the most unreasonable. Her fame is due not to 
her genius, for she really had none, but to the fact that her 
own generation beheved there was " no sich a person," 



41 

and after generations believed in her as the author of 
a phrase she never wrote. And, indeed, no one would 
remember even the doubt at the time thrown upon her 
identity, but for BosweU. I know Cumberland also is an 
authority for the report that Dr, Hill wrote the book. 
HiE, he says, was " a needy author who could not make 
a dinner out of the press till, by a happy transforma- 
tion into Hannah Glasse, he turned himself into a cook 
and sold receipts for made dishes to all the savoury 
readers in the kingdom. Then, indeed, the press ac- 
knowledged him second in fame only to John Bunyan; 
his feasts kept pace in sale with Kelson's Fasts, and 
when his own name was fairly written out of credit, he 
wrote himself into immortality under an alias." But no- 
body nowadays reads Cumberland's Memoirs, and every- 
body reads BosweU, — or pretends to. The subject came 
up at Mr. Dilly's dinner-table. "Mrs. Glasse's Cookery, 
which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade 
knows this," said Mr. Dilly, who, being in the trade him- 
self, ought to have been an authority. But Dr. Johnson 
was of another opinion: "Women can spin very well, 
but they cannot make a good book of cookery." Mrs. 
Glasse's is not a good book, mistakes occurring in it; 



42 

therefore, Dr. Hill, a man, could not have written it. I 
agree with Dr. Johnson's conclusions, but on far simpler 
grounds. The impersonation of Mrs. Glasse would, in the 
end, have become too elaborate a joke to carry through, 
had Dr. Hill been as ingenious and as wanting in ve- 
racity as in Dr. Johnson's description of him to George 
III. The first edition of the Art of Cookery — the foho, 
sold at Mrs. Ashburn's China Shop, comer of Fleet 
Ditch, and at Mrs. Wharton's, at the Blue Coat Boy, 
near the Royal Exchange — was published anonymously 
in 1747. " By a Lady " is printed on the title-page. 
Only later editions, the octavo, sold by inmmierable 
booksellers. Dr. Johnson's friend Mr. MiEar among 
them, appear with the name H. Glasse on the title-page 
and above the first chapter. To invent the name would 
have been no great tax on the imagination. But, by the 
fourth edition. Dr. Hill would have had to invent a trade 
as well. For in this edition, and in this one only, an im- 
pressive engraved frontispiece describes Hannah Glasse 
— and if the description is long, it is too inimitable not 
to be quoted in full — as " Habit-Maker, to Her Eoyal 
Highness the Princess of Wales, in Tavistock Street 
Covent Garden. Makes & Sells all Sorts of Riding 



f^ 
5-^' 



t^ 










^^ 



^ 







1 . - .r^ 



' ^- \^:^Mni-^ruxlliT/-''^ 



':■"•-. •''/^'-'■■' -' ^-.J-Z/.i ,(//. ^"r/^,'/- //'/■////,)'. //,?/■,''/:!,. A\ir/tA-.K 
■■. /-VV/."' f>-''/'\-''/r'>\k^^/r//A(r,t/,<-/i'///.i/,if^-<ith.,-/'{///,jn-9^.r)A), 
'fyji-t/f/i''' VI 'I. ' i ////// <//.'.'/ '/V .1.,//,// . //,< /, ■ t/,- , ,//tr.'.,/ /;:/;i, ^ 
-'//(,/.■//;, '/,.,/,!,. '//^ ///^//„/, I /v/^////,.>. ///,',//,'.'////"'/«■/•,■.', ..^.^^ 

MjJrr tJlP5)C.'tMt lilillMC!- 
^f }/:■// /■/ -rfr/'-j/i.!/. ■///-///, //jf.i. \^f !•///.>,, //<^, I /ni /■,:;_, //n//a?l 

-■iJISovts oi'.Friii<j5ps JtL.ifeK a-i('li(';tj> a^frGni dio^f.ik'crs 
§■:- • Lik»"\' Ji'e a]j SGrS;s oflVL-i/ntiea'arl.' J)refscs. 



43 

Habits, Josephs, Great Coats, Horsemens Coats, Russia 
Coats, Hussar Coats, Bedgowns, ISTight-Gowns, and 
Robe de shambers. Widows Weeds, Sultains, Sultans, 
and Cantouches, after the neatest manner. Likewise Par- 
hament. Judges, & Councellers Robes, ItaUan Robes, 
Cossockeens, Capuchins, Newmarket Cloaks, Long- 
Cloaks, Short Do. Quilted Coats, Hoop Petticoats, Under 
Coats, All Sorts of Fringes & Laces as Cheap as from 
the Makers Bonuetts, Hatts, Short Hoods and Caps of 
all Sorts Plain Sattins, Sasnetts and Persians. All Sorts 
of Childbed Linning, Cradles, Baskets & Robes &c Also 
Stuffs, Camblets, Cahmancoes & Worsted Damasks, 
Norwich Crapes & Bumbasins, Scarlet Cloaths, Duffels 
& Frizes, Dimitys, New Market Hunting Caps, &c. 
Likewise all Sorts of Masquerade Dresses." 
More than this, Dr. Hill, thus estabUshed on copper plate, 
would have had promptly to invent his f aihu-e. In 1754, 
three years later, Hannah Glasse figured among the 
bankrupts of the year; " Hannah Glasse of St.Paurs, Co- 
vent Garden, Warehousekeeper," is the entry. He would 
also have had to claim two other books : The Servant's 
Directory, published in 1760, ahnost fifteen years after 
the Art of Cookery, a book I have never been able to 



u 

find/ and The Compleat Confectioner, published in I can- 
not say what year, for my copy, a first edition, has no date, 
and the book is known neither to Hazlitt nor Yicaire. 
And as a last touch, he must have had the brilhant idea 
of opening a cookery school in Edinburgh, if I can trust 
" M. D.," who wrote a note on the fly-leaf of my copy 
of The Compleat Confectioner to protest against the 
revival, in the Times, of the old scandal. This was in 
1866, when some one rashly called Mrs. Glasse " Mrs. 
Harris." Mrs. Glasse, M. D. says, " hved in the flesh in 
Edinburgh about 1790. She taught cookery to classes 
of young ladies. My mother was a pupil and fondly 
showed in her old age to her children a copy of Glasse's 
Cookery, with the autograph of the authoress, gained as 
a prize in the School of Cookery." " M. D." at once 
spoils her case by adding, " This book did contain ' Catch 

' Just as I am re-reading this before trusting it to the post, a 
package is handed to me. I open it. The Servant's Directory, or 
Housekeeper's Companion, by H. Glasse. The book I have been 
searching for during long years ! The miracle I owe, I am proud 
to say, to Mr. Janvier, whose intimacy with Mr. Hutchinson, Port 
of Philadelphia, has made him sympathize with me in my study 
of the Science of the Gullet. 



45 

your Hare.' " Not before seeing it could I believe. I 
have spent honrs in pursuit of the famous phrase, or, at 
least, the reason of the misquotation, in the hope that 
success might, forever after, hnk my name with that of 
Hannah Glasse. But I can come no nearer to the clue 
than the " First Case your hare," found in every cook- 
ery book of the period, that Mr. Churton Collins has just 
been offering as an explanation, and so depriving me of 
the chance of being the first with even this obvious 
discovery. 

Well, anyway, beheve in Mrs. Glasse, or not, the cookery 
book that bears her name is the only one published in the 
eighteenth century now remembered by the whole world. 
And yet, it is in eighteenth-century books my collection 
is richest. They are mostly substantial octavos, calf 
bound, much the worse for wear, often " embellished " 
with an elegant frontispiece, a portrait of the author, or 
picture of the kitchen, and, I regret to say, seldom very 
beautiful examples of the printer's art. Several have 
been given to me by friends who know my weakness. 
For instance, few books in my entire hbrary do I prize 
more than the Collection Of above Three Hundred Re- 
ceipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery; For the Use of 



46 

all Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses, 
not so much because it is curious and tolerably rare, as 
because of the Kttle legend, "Hommage to Autolycus,' 
Austin Dobson," on the fly-leaf. The greater number I 
have bought at different times, but it is to be noted that 
never, hke Sala, have I picked one up from a coster- 
monger's barrow, though, for a while, I made weekly 
pilgrimages to Whitechapel in their pursuit. Usually 
they have come through the second-hand booksellers, 
A few sympathizers. Dr. Fiirnivall chief among them, 
never fail to let me know of a chance for a bargain. 
Once I was offered some odd twenty, all in one lot, be- 
fore they were advertised, and I hardly receive a cata- 
logue that does not contain two or three in its hst. IS^or 
are they often costly. For the price of one Mrs. Glasse 
in the first edition, you can have a whole series of her 
contemporaries. And so this section of my collection has 
grown, until I have over seventy books pubHshed in 
England alone during the eighteenth century. 
If I were asked to point out any one characteristic they 

1 Perhaps I should explain that my articles on cookery appeared 
in the Pall MaU, under the title of Wares of Autolycus, and it was 
while I was writing them that Mr. Dobson gave me the book. 



47 

all share in common, I would say it was the busmess- 
hke seriousness of their authors. The amateur had been 
silenced forever by artists like Robert May and Will 
Rabisha. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
almost all the new cookery books were being written by 
cooks. And the new authors were in haste, on the very 
title-page, to present their credentials. Henry Howard 
(England's Newest Way in all Sorts of Cookery, 1703, 
— my edition, alas, is 1708) and T. Hall (The Queen's 
Royal Cookery, 1713) were Free Cooks of London. 
Patrick Lamb (The Complete Court-Cook, 1710) was 
" near fifty years Master Cook to their late Majesties 
King Charles H, King James H, King William, Queen 
Mary, and to her Present Majesty, Queen Anne," and in 
the Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of 
the Royal Household, you can learn to a halfpenny how 
much he earned in a year. Charles Carter (The Com- 
pleat City and Country Cook, 1732), whose boast it was 
that he came of " a long race of predecessors," presided 
over the kitchens of the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of 
Pontefract, and Lord ComwaUis. John Nott (The Cooks 
and Confectioners Dictionary, 1727), Vincent La Cha- 
peUe (The Modem Cook, 1751, but then mine is a fourth 



48 

edition), William Verral (A Complete System of Cook- 
ery, 1759), — all I could name have as irreproachable 
references. A few were not cooks in service, but teach- 
ers: Edward Kidder, Pastry-Master, for one, who ran 
two schools : in Queen Street, near St. Thomas Apostle's, 
where he held his classes on Mondays, Tuesdays, and 
"Wednesdays, and at Furnival's Inn in Holborn, where 
he presided on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays ; he 
also was willing, kind soul, to teach ladies in their own 
houses. I respect Kidder as a man of originality, for 
his Eeceipts of Pastry and Cookery is vmlike any book 
of the same period. From the frontispiece, where he 
appears in ample wig, with one hand uplifted as if in 
exhortation to his class, to the amazing plans for setting 
and decorating a dinner-table, it is neatly engraved and 
printed on one side of the page only, the receipts written 
out in the most beautiful copper-plate writing. He was 
original in his spelhng, too : " Sauceages," I consider a 
gem even in the eighteenth century j and he was surely 
a forerunner of the modern cockney, when he wrote, 
" To roast an Hare." 
The ladies were as eager to vouch for their quahfioations. 



49 

Mrs. Mary Bale, whose Eeceipts were first published in 
1708, was Confectioner to Queen Anne; Mrs. Charlotte 
Mason was a Housekeeper who had had " upwards of 
Thirty Years' Experience in Families of the first Fash- 
ion; " Mrs. Ehzabeth Raff aid held the same position to 
the Hon. Lady Ehzabeth Warburton, and Mrs. Sarah 
Martin, to Freeman Bower, Esq., of Bawtry, — I have 
his copy of her book, with receipts in his own hand- 
writing on pages inserted for the purpose, with a note 
testifying to their origin by his great-nephew. Canon 
Jackson ! Others proudly proclaimed their town or coun- 
ty, as if their reputation made further detail superflu- 
ous : Mrs. Mary Wilson of Hertfordshire, Mrs. Sarah 
Harrison of Devonshire, Mrs. Susannah Carter of Clerk- 
enweU, Mrs. Ann Shackleford of Winchester. And then 
there were the rivals of Edward Kidder: Mrs. Frazer, 
Mrs. Cleland, and Mrs. Maciver taught the Arts of Cook- 
ery, Pastry, and Confectionery in Edinburgh, where, if 
M. D. is to be beheved, Hannah Glasse joined them after 
her adventures in the Bankruptcy Court. But whatever 
their quahfications, they are to be counted by the dozen, 
so that I can but wonder why it seemed so astonishing a 



50 

thing for Hannah More, Mary WoUstonecraft, and the 
other Blue Stockings of the eighteenth century to rush 
into print. 

The seriousness with which these cooks and housekeep- 
ers and professors took themselves was reflected in their 
style. An occasional seventeenth-century book, reap- 
pearing ia an eighteenth-century edition, may have con- 
tinued to enjoy something of popularity; an occasional 
new book at the very beginning of the period may have 
retained something of the old picturesqueness. The Col- 
lection Of above Three Hundred Receipts fiUs its pages 
with Tansies and Possets, Syllabubs and Flummeries, 
still recommends a dish as "the best that ever was 
tasted," and stiU advises you " to put in a little shalot, if 
you love it; " The Queen's Royal Cookery is as flam- 
boyant with decorative adjectives as any queen's closet. 
But as time went on, the pleasant old familiarity went 
out of fashion, and ornament was chastened. The Uter- 
ary tendency of the age was toward more formal dig- 
nity, a greater regularity of form. In accordance with 
the mode, receipts were written with a businesshke deci- 
sion, a professional directness that allowed no flowers of 
speech. Many cooks seem to have forestalled or copied 



51 

Dr. Johnson in the effort to say a thing as pompously as 
it could be said; disdain of ornament led many to a mat- 
ter-of-fact bluntness that is appalling. " Stick your Pig 
just above the breast-bone," says Mrs. Elizabeth Eaffald 
without any preamble, " rmi your knife to the heart, when 
it is dead, put it in cold water." "Whoever, after that, 
would eat of her pig has more courage than I, 
Some sort of order was also introduced into the arrange- 
ment of receipts, in the place of the haphazard disorder 
of the old MS. books. The change was due, in a large 
measure, to French influence. In France, the art of cook- 
ery had reached a much higher stage of perfection than 
in England. The Enghsh might rebel against the fact, 
and they did in good earnest. It was not only the Squire 
of Clod-Hall who 

" Classed your Kickshaws and Ragoos 
With Popery and Wooden Shoes." 

Steele deplored the fashion that banished the " noble 
Sirloin " ignominiously " to make way for French Kick- 
shaws," and he held a French ragout to be " as perni- 
cious to the Stomach as a glass of spirits." " What work 
would our countrymen have made at Blenheim and 
EamiUies, if they had been fed with fricassees and ra- 



52 

gouts ? " he asks. It was the " parcel of Kickshaws con- 
trived by a French cook " that gave the finishing touch 
to Matthew Bramble's displeasure with the wife of his 
friend Baynard. " Their meals are gross," was one of 
Dr. Johnson's first entries in the Diary of his httle Tour 
in Prance, proving forever that he was not the " man of 
very nice discernment in the science of cookery " that 
Boswell thought him. And, at home, was it not of a cer- 
tain nobleman's French cook he was heard to say with 
vehemence, " I 'd throw such a rascal into the river " ? 
The English cooks were as outspoken. Mrs. Glasse's 
Preface is a protest against "the blind Folly of this 
age that they would rather be imposed on by a French 
Booby than give encouragement to a good English 
Cook ... if Gentlemen will have French cooks, they 
must pay for French tricks." E. Smith regretted that 
in her book she had to include a few French dishes, 
" since we have, to our disgrace, so fondly admired the 
French tongue, French modes, and also French messes." 
Charles Carter lamented that "some of our Nobihty and 
gentry have been too much attached to French Customs 
and French Cookery," — too willing " to dress even 
more delicious Fare after the Humour of the (perhaps 



58 

vitiated) palates of some great Personages or noted Epi- 
cures of France." It was the one point upon which all, 
with a few exceptions, were agreed. 
But protests were of small avail. Already, in his Direc- 
tions to Servants, Swift had found it a long time since 
the custom began among the people of quality to keep 
men cooks and generally of the French nation. Patriot- 
ism, I fear, does not begin in the stomach. French cooks 
presided in most of the big houses ; French cooks were 
patronized by royalty ; French cooks wrote cookery 
books. The French Family Cook (1793) was but a be- 
lated translation of the famous Cuisiniere Bourgeoise 
(1746) . La Chapelle, who published a treatise, was a 
Frenchman. So was Clermont. Yerral studied imder a 
Frenchman. And from French sources the most patri- 
otic were not ashamed to steal. Mrs. Smith, however 
she might object to French messes, must still admit the 
necessity to temporize, justifying herself by including 
only " such receipts of French cookery as I think may 
not be disagreeable to Enghsh palates." Mrs. Glasse, 
however she might scorn the French Booby, must still 
give some of her dishes " French names to distinguish 
them, because they are known by those names," and it 



54 

matters not if they be called French so they are good. 
The question reduced itself simply to one of demand 
and supply. But if the " French Kickshaws " had been 
so bad for the pubhc as patriots preached, the study of 
French books was altogether good for the preachers. 
Under the sweet civilizing influence of France the bar- 
barous medley of the English cookery book disappeared. 
A roast did not turn up unexpectedly between a sweet 
and a savory, or a fish in the midst of the soups, or an 
omelet lost among the vegetables. Each dish was duly 
labeled and entered in its appropriate chapter. Chemi- 
cal, Physical, and Chirurgical Secrets were banished to 
separate volumes with a few curious exceptions. " I 
shall not take upon me to meddle in the physical way 
farther than two receipts," writes Mrs. Glasse. " One 
is for the bite of a mad dog, and the other if a man 
should be near where the Plague is, he shall be in no 
danger." And these receipts are so often repeated in 
rival cookery books that I can only suppose there were 
many who believed in earnest what Lord Chesterfield 
said in jest when, six years after Mrs. Glasse's book 
was pubhshed, he wrote to his son that his friend EJ-eu- 
ningen " admits nobody now to his table, for fear of their 



55 

communicating the plague to him, or at least the bite of 
a mad dog." But it was no easy matter for the ladies 
to relinquish their rights to prescribe. If the gentle- 
woman of the day still 

" knew for sprains what bands to choose. 
Could tell the sovereign wash to use 
For freckles, and was learned in brews 
As erst Medea," 

it would not have done for the self-appointed instructors 
of the sex to be behindhand in these arts, E. Smith 
cannot resist giving some two hundred receipts " never 
before been made public," though she has the grace to 
print them in a section apart. Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. 
Price both undertake to make " Every man his own 
Doctor," and in the undertaking Mrs. Price supplies a 
cure that I quote on the chance of its proving useful, 
for I fancy the malady continues to be common, so af- 
flicted am I with it myself. " For the Lethargy," she 
says, " you may snuff strong vinegar up the nose." It 
was natural at a time when Compendiums, Universal 
Visitors, Dictionaries of Commerce, and of everything 
else, were in vogue, that other women took upon them- 
selves also, by means of Dictionaries, and Magazines, 



56 

and Companions, and Jewels, and Guides, to see their 
sex comfortably through life " from the cradle to the 
grave." I have any number of ambitious books of this 
kind, all based on The Whole Duty of Woman, and the 
performance of Mrs, Hannah WooUey of seventeenth- 
century fame. Take a few headings of chapters from 
any one chosen at random, and you have the character 
of all : Of Eeligion ; The Duty of Virgins ; Of Wives ; 
Of Gravies, Soups, Broths, Pottages. But the system, 
the careful division of subjects, now become indispen- 
sable, is observed even in these compilations. 
The new love of order had one drawback. It gave 
writers less opportunity for self -revelation. I miss the 
personal note so pleasant in the older books of cookery, 
that is, in the receipts themselves. One collection is so 
like another I can hardly tell them apart unless I turn to 
the title-page or the preface. But here ample amends 
are made. The cook did not suppress his individuality 
meekly, and, fortunately for him, the age was one of 
Prefaces and Dedications. In the few pages where he 
still could swagger, he made up for the many where the 
mode forced him to efface himself. " Custom," says 
John IS'ott, in 1723, to the " Worthy Dames " to whom 



57 

he offers his Dictionary, " has made it as unfashionable 
for a Book to appear without an Introduction, as for 
a Man to appear at Church without a Neckcloth, or a 
Lady without a Hoop-petticoat." " It being grown as 
unfashionable for a Book to appear in public without 
a Preface, as for a Lady to appear at a Ball without a 
Hoop-petticoat," says Mrs. Smith in 1727, her great tal- 
ent being for plagiarism, " I shall conform to custom for 
Fashion's sake, and not through any Necessity." Mr. 
Hazhtt thinks Mrs. Smith unusually observant ; he should 
have remembered the hbrary at her disposal, and, had 
he known this hbrary more intimately, he would have 
reahzed how httle scruple she had in drawing from it. 
She only writes because, although already there are " va- 
rious Books that treat on this subject and which bear great 
names as Cooks to Kings, Princes and Noblemen," most 
of them have deceived her in her expectations, so im- 
practicable, whimsical, or unpalatable, are the receipts. 
But she presents the result of her own experience " in 
Fashionable and Noble Famihes," and if her book but 
" prove to the advantage of many, the end will be an- 
swered that is proposed by her that is ready to serve 
the Publick in what she may." Each writer in turn is as 



58 

eager to find a reason for his or her help in glutting the 
market. The author of the Collection Of above Three 
Hundred Receipts is prompted by the sole " desire of 
doing good," in which, fortunately, she has been aided 
by those " who with a ISToble Charity and Universal Be- 
nevolence have exposed to the World such invaluable 
secrets," as, I suppose, " how to stew Cucumbers to eat 
hot," or " to make the London "Wigs," — gratitude, 
above all, being due to the Fair Sex, " who, it may be 
because of the greater Tenderness of their Nature or 
their greater Leisure, are always found most Active and 
Industrious in this, as well as in all other kinds of Char- 
ity. O Heavenly Charity ! " — and so on, and so on. 
William Gelleroy has learnt during service with the 
Lord Mayor that " so long as it is the fashion to eat, 
so long will cookery books be useful." Mrs. EUzabeth 
Price, the healer of Lethargy, thinks it her duty to show 
the world how to unite " Economy and Elegance," and, 
as an assurance of her abihty, breaks into verse on her 

title-page : — 

" Here you may quickly learn with care 
To act the housewife's part, 
And dress a modern BiU of Fare 
With Elegance and Art." 



A 

COLLECTION 

Of above Three Hundred 

RECEIPTS 

I N 

Cookery, 

Phyfick and Surgery; 

For the Ufe of all 

Good Wives, Tender Mothers^ and 
Careful Nuries. 



By feveral Hands. 



C^e ^econU CDittotu 



To which is Added, 
A Second Pa rt. Containing a great Number of 
Excellent Receipts, for Preferving and Con- 
ferving of Sweet-Meats, ^c. 



r.ONDON^ Printed for Af^y KettUby, and Sold by 
Richard mikin, at the Ktn£s Head in St. PauTs 
CbHTch'Tard. MDCCXIX. 



59 
Mrs. Charlotte Mason knows there are many books, but 
has " never met with one that contained any instructions 
for regulating a table." Mrs. EUzabeth Moxon, like the 
modest author to-day, shifts the responsibility to her 
" honored friends who first excited her to the publica- 
tion of her book, and who have been long eye-witnesses 
of her Skill and Behaviour in the Business of her Call- 
ing." Mrs. Ehzabeth Eaffald, reflecting upon the con- 
tempt with which the many volumes already pubHshed 
were read, seems to have hoped no one would find her 
out if she boldly borrowed from Mrs. Price and Mrs. 
Glasse, and tried to save her own from the general fate 
by imiting " Economy and Elegance," taking the very 
words out of Mrs. Price's mouth, and by seeing that it 
was not " glossed over with Hard Names or words of 
High Stile, but wrote in my own plain language," barely 
altering Mrs. Glasse's memorable phrase. I select a few 
specimens of her plain language : " Hares and Rabbits 
requires time and care," she says, with a cheerful disre- 
gard of grammar; " Pigeons Transmogrified " is a term 
I should recommend to the Century Company for a new 
edition of their Dictionary; while upon a very popular 
dish of the day she bestows the name " Solomon-gundy," 



60 

as if she fancied that, somehow, King Solomon were 
responsible for it. John Farley hopes his book is distin- 
guished from others by " Perspicuity and Regularity." 
But I might go on quoting indefinitely, for almost every 
Preface is a masterpiece of its kind, so pompous in its 
periods, so bombastic in its eloquence, until I begin to 
suspect that if Bacon wrote Shakespeare, so Dr. John- 
son must have written Nott and Lamb and Clermont and 
Farley; that if Dr. Hill transformed himself into Hannah 
Glasse, so Dr. Johnson must have masqueraded as E. 
Smith, Elizabeth Raff aid, and a whole bevy of fair cooks 
and housekeepers. 

There is another trait shared by all these cooks, to whom 
I should do scant justice if I did not point it out. This 
is the large liberality with which they practiced their art. 
The magnitude of their ideas, at times, makes me gasp. 
I have been often asked if, with such a fine collection to 
choose from, I do not amuse myself experimenting with 
the old receipts. But all our flat turned into a kitchen 
would not be large enough to cook an eighteenth-cen- 
tury dinner, nor our year's income to pay for it. The 
proportions used in each different dish are gigantic. 
What Dr. King wrote in jest of the different cooks who, 



61 

" to show you the largeness of their soul, prepared you 
Mutton swol'd ^ and oxen whole," was virtually true. For 
a simple " Fricassy," you begin with half a dozen chick- 
ens, half a dozen pigeons, half a dozen sweetbreads, and 
I should need a page to explain what you finish with for 
garniture. Fowls disappeared into a Iamb or other meat 
pie by the dozen; a simple leg of mutton must have its 
garniture of cutlets; twelve pounds of good meat, to 
say nothing of odd partridges, fowls, turkeys, and ham, 
went into the making of one stew, — it is something 
stupendous to read. And then the endless number of 
dishes in a menu, — the insufferably crowded table. A 
century before, Pepys had discovered the superior merit 
of serving " but a dish at a time " when he gave his fine 
dinner to Lord Sandwich. But the eighteenth-century 
books continue to pubhsh menus that make Gargan- 
tua's appetite seem mere child's play; their plates "ex- 
hibiting the order of placing the different dishes, etc., 
on the table in the most polite way " would spoil the ap- 
petite of the bravest. Forty-three dishes are symmetri- 
cally arranged for a single course in one of Yincent La 

^ " Swol'd Mutton is a sheep roasted in its Wool," according to 
Dr. Lister himsell 



62 

Chapelle's plates, and La Chapelle was a Frenchman, 
and in England enjoyed Lord Chesterfield's patronage. 
Cooks may have got so advanced as no longer to be- 
heve " that Syllibubs come first and Soups the last," but 
quantity was stiU their standard of merit. Authorities 
may have begun to decree that " three courses be the 
most." But consider what a course meant. Let me give 
one menu of two courses as an average example. It 
is for a July day, and Mrs. Smith is the artist: "First 
Course: Cock Salmon with buttered lobsters, Dish of 
Scotch coUops, Chine of Yeal, Yenison pasty, Grand Sal- 
lad, Roasted geese and ducklings, Patty royal, Eoasted 
pig larded. Stewed carps. Dish of chickens boiled with 
bacon, etc.," — that etc. is expressive. " Second Course: 
Dish of partridges and quails, Dish of lobsters and 
prawns. Dish of ducks and tame pigeons. Dish of jellies. 
Dish of fruit. Dish of marinated fish. Dish of Tarts of 
sorts." Add a third course to this if you dare. 
At first, this lavishness perplexed me. I remembered 
eighteenth-century dinners as simple as our own. For 
example, Boswell's with Dr. Johnson one Easter Sun- 
day, — a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and spm- 
ach, a veal pie, and rice pudding, — that seems reason- 



63 

able. Or again, the beef, pudding, and potatoes to which 
Grub Street was invited on Sundays by the successful 
author, according to Smollett. Or Stella's breast of 
mutton and a piat of wine when she dined at home in 
Dublin. " Two plain dishes, with two or three good- 
natured, cheerful, ingenious friends," was Steele's idea 
of a good dinner. But then there is the opposite side of 
the picture. Dr. Johnson's Gulosulus, cultivating the art 
of living at the cost of others. Swift, in London, saun- 
tering forth of a morning dehberately in search of a 
dinner at somebody else's house and expense, and if none 
of the great men with great establishments invited him, 
dropping in for want of something better, and without a 
moment's notice, at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, and he could not 
have been a more severe critic had he had the special 
invitation which Dr. Johnson thought made the special 
menu an obhgation. " The worst dinner I ever saw at 
the dean's was better," Swift wrote to Stella, " than one 
had at Sir Thomas Hansel's," and " yet this man has 
ten thousand pounds a year and is a Lord of the Trea- 
sury ! " At the Earl of Abingdon's, on a certain Ash 
Wednesday, there was nothing but fish that was raw, 
wine that was poison, candles that were tallow ; and yet 



64 

" the puppy has twelve thousand pounds a year," though 
I do not find that Swift went the length of calling his 
host puppy in print, more outspoken as he was than 
most of his contemporaries. Swift was but one of a large 
crowd of hungry men in search of a free dumer which 
they looked upon as their right. By food the noble Lord 
tamed his authors and secured his sycophants; by food 
the gracious Lady ruled her salon. " Whenever you 
meet with a man eminent ia any way, feed him, and feed 
upon him at the same time," was Lord Chesterfield's 
advice to his son. Mrs. Thrale had but to provide sweet- 
meats to make her evenings a success, Dr. Johnson 
thought. Nor, for that matter, has the bait lost its cun- 
ning ia the London of to-day. Now the eighteenth-cen- 
tury cook who wrote books was a snob. He would al- 
ways have you know it was with the Tables of Princes, 
Ambassadors, Noblemen, and Magistrates he was con- 
cerned; but rarely would he devise " the least expen- 
sive methods of providing for private f amiUes," and then 
it must be " in a very elegant manner." He had, there- 
fore, to design on a large scale, to adapt his art to the 
nmnber and hunger and fastidiousness of the hanger- 
on. And here, I think, you have the explanation. 



65 

But another problem I have hitherto been unable to solve. 
When I study the receipts of the period, I am struck 
by their variety and excellence. The tendency to over- 
seasoning, to the mixing of sweets and savories in one 
dish, had not altogether been overcome; probably, I 
am afraid, because fresh meat was not always to be 
had, and suspicious flavors had to be disguised. Some 
" made dishes" you know, without tasting them, to be 
as " wretched attempts " as Maclaurin's seemed to Dr. 
Johnson. However, so many and ingenious were the ways 
of preparing soups, sauces, meats, poultry, game, fish, 
vegetables, and sweets, the gourmet had sufficient chance 
to steer clear of the tawdry and the crude. Only in 
Voltaire's witticism was England then a country of a 
hundred religions and one sauce. Soup soared above the 
narrow oxtail and turtle ideal, and the cook roamed at 
will from the richest bisque to the simplest bouillon. 
The casserole was exalted and shared the honors with 
the honest spit. Fricassees and ragouts were not yet 
overshadowed by plain roast and boiled. Vegetables 
were not thought, when unadorned, to be adorned the 
most. And as for oysters, an American could not have 
been more accomplished in frying, scalloping, stewing. 



66 

roasting, broiling, and boiling them, — even Swift gave 
his dear little M. D. a receipt for boiled oysters, which 
must have been not unlike that delicious dish of mussels 
one has eaten in many a French provincial hotel. And 
what is England to-day? A country soupless and sauce- 
less, consecrated to a " Chop or a Steak, sir ! " from John 
o' Groat's to Land's End, vowed irrevocably to boiled 
potatoes and greens, without as much as a grain of salt 
to flavor them. How did it happen? What was the rea- 
son of the Decline and Fall? Not Tatler's Appeal to 
his fellow countrymen to " return to the food of their 
forefathers, and reconcile themselves to beef and mut- 
ton." That was uttered in 1710, and had absolutely 
no effect upon the tendency of the eighteenth- century 
cookery books that followed. As for " the common peo- 
ple of this kingdom [who] do still keep up the taste of 
their ancestors," never yet have they set the fashion. 
I confess I still remain in outer darkness, groping for a 
clue. 

If, as a rule, the eighteenth-century books, save for 
their prefaces, have a strong family resemblance, I prize 
the more the small but select saving remnant that makes 
for individuality. There are books that stand out with 



67 

distinction, in my estimate, at least, because of the 
originality of the title: for instance, Adam's Luxury 
and Eve's Cookery; or the Kitchen-Garden display'd. 
(Printed for R. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1744.) This octavo 
I saw first in the Patent Library collection of cookery 
books, never resting afterwards until I had secured a 
copy of my own, and the contents would have to be 
more colorless than they are to spoil my pleasm^e in the 
name. Now the charm is in the illustrations : for exam- 
ple. The Honours of the Table, or Rules for Behaviour 
During Meals (by the author of Principles of Pohteness, 
1791). Most of the cookery books of the period are 
content with the frontispiece, engraved on copper. But 
this little book has tail-pieces and illustrations scattered 
through the text, described in catalogues and bibhogra- 
phies as " Woodcuts by Bewick." I saw it also first at 
the Patent Library, and before the ardor of my pursuit 
had cooled to the investigation point, three different 
editions had a place on my shelves ; two printed in Lon- 
don at the Literary Press, in 1788 and 1791, the third 
printed in Dublin also in 1791. Then I found that the 
wood engravings — it is a mistake to caU them wood- 
cuts, and one might as well be pedantic in these mat- 



68 

ters — are not by Thomas but by John Bewick, which 
makes a difference to the collector. But then Bewick's 
brother is not to be despised, and the book is full of 
useful hints, such as " eating a great deal is deemed in- 
delicate in a lady (for her character should be rather 
divine than sensual) ; " or, " if any of the company seem 
backward in asking for wine, it is the part of the mas- 
ter to ask or invite them to drink, or he will be thought 
to grudge his liquor." A few books please me because 
of the tribute their learning pays to the kitchen. Among 
these the most celebrated is Dr. Lister's edition of 
ApiciuB Coehus, published in 1705, now a rare book, at 
the time a bombshell in the camp of the antiquary, who, 
living in the country and hearing of it but not yet seeing 
it, was reduced to such " perplexity of mind " that " he 
durst not put any Catchup in his Fish Sauce, nor have 
his beloved Pepper, Oyl and Limon with his Partridge," 
lest " he might transgress in using something not com- 
mon to the Antients." Another is The Art of Cookery, 
(1705), in imitation of Horace, by the Dr. Eang who 
was described, two years later, by Swift to Stella, as " a 
poor starving wit." And indeed, the £32 5 0, said to 
have been paid him for the poem by Lintot, could 



69 

not have tided him over his difficulties as a thirsty man. 
It is rather a ponderous performance, with here and 
there flashes : probably the verses were some of those 
Pope said he would write " in a tavern three hours after 
he could not speak." The book was a skit really on Dr. 
Lister and his Apicius Coelius that, for the moment, 
served the wit as a target for his ridicule. 
But, of all, the books I love most are those that make 
their appeal by some unexpected literary association. 
I own to a genuine emotion when I f oimd it was to Lord 
Chesterfield that Vincent La Chapelle dedicated The 
Modern Cook, and that to the chef in his kitchen the 
noble patron offered the helping hand he later refused 
to the author at his door. I cannot understand why, for 
La ChapeUe, in his praise of his lordship's exalted qual- 
ities, did not humble himself more completely than John- 
son when overpowered, fike the rest of mankind, by the 
enchantment of his lordship's address. In the Gentle 
Art of Toadying, the author of the eighteenth century 
could instruct the cook. It was, however, reserved for 
WiUiam Yerral to give me the greatest thrill. His Com- 
plete System of Cookery is little known even to biblio- 
graphers; its receipts do not seem exceptional, perhaps 



70 

because they have been eo freely borrowed by other 
compilers; in make-up the book scarcely differs from 
the average, nor is there special distinction in Yerral's 
post at the time of his writing, — he was master of the 
White Hart Inn, Lewes, Sussex; "no more than what 
is vulgarly called a poor publican " is his description of 
himself. But his title-page at the first glance was worth 
more to me than a whole shelf of his contemporaries' 
big fat volumes. Let me explain. By no great man in 
the annals of cookery have I been so puzzled as by that 
once famous " Chloe," French cook to the Duke of l^ew- 
castle, and important enough in his own generation to 
swagger for a minute in the Letters of Horace Walpole 
and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I had heard of 
Chloe, the beloved of Daphnis; I had heard of Chloe, 
the rival of Steele's Clarissa; I had even heard of Chloe, 
the old darky cook of the South. But of Chloe, a 
Frenchman, I had never heard, and I knew, without 
consulting the Encyclopsedia, he simply could not exist. 
Who, then, was the Duke of Newcastle's Chloe? He 
was the last person I had in my mind when I began to 
read Verral's title, but by the time I got to the end I 
understood : A Complete System of Cookery, In which 



71 

is set forth a Variety of genuine Receipts; collected 
from several Years' Experience under the celebrated 
Mr. de St. Clouet, sometimes since Cook to his Grace, 
the Duke of Newcastle. Clouet — Chloe — is it not as 
near and neat a guess as could be hoped for in the 
French of eighteenth-century London? He deserves his 
fame, for his receipts are excellent; wisdom in all he says 
about soup; genius in his use of garhc. Yerral, more- 
over, writes an Introductory Preface, a graceful bit of 
autobiography, " to which is added, a true character of 
Mons. de St. Clouet;" so well done that there is scarcely 
a cook in history, not Vatel, not Careme, whom I now 
feel I know better. " An honest man," Verral testifies, 
" worthy of the place he enjoyed in that noble family 
he had the honour to live in," not extravagant as was 
said, but " setting aside the two soups, fish, and about 
five gros entrees (as the French caU them) he has with 
.the help of a couple of rabbits or chickens, and six 
pigeons, completed a table of twenty-one dishes at a 
course, with such things as used to serve only for gar- 
nish round a lump of great heavy dishes before became." 
Fortunately for the Duke of Newcastle's purse, St. 
Clouet must still have been with him for the famous 



72 

banquets celebrating his installation as Chancellor at 
Cambridge, when, according to Walpole, his cooks for 
ten days massacred and confounded " all the species 
that Noah and Moses took such pains to preserve and 
distinguish," and, according to Gray, everyone "was 
very owUsh and tipsy at night," This was ui 1749; 
1759 is the date of Verral's book, by which time St. 
Clouet had become cook to the Marechal de Richelieu. 
I think it but due to him to recall that he was " of a 
temper so affable and agreeable as to make everybody 
happy around him. He would converse about indiffer- 
ent matters with me (Verral) or his kitchen boy, and 
the next moment, by a sweet turn in his discourse, give 
pleasure by his good behaviour and genteel deportment, 
to the first steward in the family. His conversation is 
always modest enough, and having read a little, he never 
wanted something to say, let the topick be what it 
would," How delightful if cooks to-day brought us 
such graceful testimonials ! 

It is with discoveries of this kind my Cookery Books re- 
ward me for the time — and worse, the money — I spend 
upon them. I never pick up one already in my collection, 
well as I may know it, without wondering what puzzle 



73 

it will unravel for me ; I never buy a new one without 
seeing in it the possible key to a mystery. And when 
I consider how much more fruitful in such rewards my 
eighteenth-century books have been than my seventeenth, 
when I consider the splendor of their mock heroics, 
the magnificence of their bombast, I waver in my old 
allegiance and begin to think that, after all, this is the 
period that charms me most in the Literature of the 
Kitchen. 



Ill 



JLt is when I look at my Latin books that I am most con- 
vinced of my sincerity as collector. My English books 
I can read and enjoy. But my pleasure in these old vel- 
lum-covered quartos and octavos, printed in a language 
I cannot understand, is purely bibliographical. Were 
their pages blank, my profit as reader could be no less. 
But without them, my pride as collector would not be 
so great. 

They are not many, or it would be nearer the truth to 
say they are very few. But these few are of rare inter- 
est, and at least one would satisfy the collector of Early 
Printed Books. Indeed, since I have been collecting, I 
begin to believe that the real achievement of the Eenais- 
sance was not the discovery of the world and man, as 
historians fancy, but the discovery of the kitchen, so 
promptly were cookery books put on the market. The 
earliest, Platina's De Honesta Voluptate, I cannot men- 
tion without a sigh, remembering how once at Sotheby's 
I came within a miserable pound of having the edition 
dated 1475 for my own, — such an exceptionally fine 
copy too ! However, I take what comfort I can from 



75 

Apicius Coelius, which I have in two editions. One, the 
first, is only eleven years younger than the Platina; and 
1486 is a respectable date, as these matters go. When 
the first chapter on My Cookery Books was printed in 
The Atlantic, I had only the 1498 edition, my copy, as I 
described it, quite perfect save for the absence of the 
title-page. For long I tried to convince myself that this 
absence was welcome as one of the marks by which the 
Early Printed Book may be known. Besides, I could 
see no need for a title-page, when there, on the last page, 
was the name of the printer, and the date, while the 
space left for the capital letter at the begioning of every 
division was still another mark as distinctive of the 
primitive press, though 1498 might be a little late to look 
for either one or the other. But M. Yicaire and his 
Bibliography refused to leave me in my comfortable 
ignorance. The 1498 edition, when perfect, has a title- 
page ; one, moreover, with a fine printer's mark, — an 
angel holding a sphere. The curious may be referred to 
the example at the BibHotheque I^ationale in Paris. But 
not even M. Yicaire can put me out of countenance when 
it comes to my first edition,^ printed by Bernardino of 
1 1 speak of it as the first out of deference to the authorities. 



76 

Venice. That, anyway, is in order: title-page in place, 
the spaces, all except one, filled with decorative capitals 
by the wood-cutter; the pages imtorn and unsoiled, only 
mellowed by time to a rich yellow; here and there, on 
the margin, a note, and once some verses, in beautiful 
old handwriting; the binding of vellimi. I have the fur- 
ther satisfaction of knowing that it is more complete 
than any that has come in M. Vicaire's way. On the 
title-page there are three titles : Apitii Celii de re Co- 
quinaria libri decern ; Suetonius Traquillus De Claris 
Gramaticis ; Suetonius TraquiUus De Claris Ehetoribus. 
M. Yicaire calls attention to the fact that the two trea- 
tises under the heading Suetonius, etc., do not appear. 
But in my copy they do, combined in one essay. And 
whenever I am discouraged by the condition of some of 
my rare books into asking myself whether, after all, they 
are anything more than Mr. Lang's "twopenny trea- 
sures," a glance at the 1486 Apicius restores my confi- 
dence in my collection. 
When I consider what the mere possession of the book 

Judging the books by their appearance, I should say the 1498 edi- 
tion was far the earlier. Certainly it is the first with a date, and, 
I am happy to say, is excessively rare. 



Apicii Celii de re Coquinaria libri decern* 
Saetonius TraquillasDe Claris Gramadci's* 
Suetonius Traquillus De Qaris Rhecoribus;; 



Coquinariae capita Grseca ab Apitio poGca hxc funt: 
EpimeIes:Artoprus:Cepurica:Pandedler:Orprion 
Trophetes;PoIyteles:Tetrapus:ThaIa(ra:HaUciiss 
Haac Plato adulacricem medidnx appellac* 




77 

means to me, it seems unreasonable to waste my time 
in regretting the further pleasure I might have, if only I 
could read it. But what a triumph, if I could decide the 
vexed question as to whether one of the three men who, 
in the days of Roman Emperors, made the name Apicius 
the synonym for gluttony, was the author, and, if so, 
which; or whether, as Dr. Martin Lister and Dr. Warner 
agreed over a hundred years ago, the book was the work 
of a fifteenth-century student of cookery who borrowed 
the ancient name to advertise his own performance. And 
what a satisfaction if I could demolish the irreverent 
critics who declare the receipts to be full of " garbage," 
— of vile concoctions, with assafcetida for motif ! The 
few words I can understand — asparagus, carrots, wine, 
oil, melons, pork — sound innocent, even appetizing. 
But to argue from such meagre premises would be 
about as wise as to criticise a picture, in Morellian fash- 
ion, after seeing it only in the photograph. 
I have also Dr. Lister's edition, with numerous notes: 
not the first published in London in 1705, but the second, 
printed in Amsterdam four years later, limited to a 
hundred copies. This is the book which set Dr. Bang to 
writing his Art of Cookery in imitation of Horace, and 



78 

filled scholars who could not secure it for themselves 
with despair lest they might be dining in defiance of 
classical rule. The notes are so many that they turn the 
thin little old quarto into a fat octavo. For their learning, 
as they too are in Latin, I must take the word of Dr. 
Lister's admirers. But, without reading them, I know 
they are sympathetic. Dr. Lister was not only physician 
to Queen Anne, but her adviser in the Art of Eating, 
and it was his privilege to inspire the indigestions it 
became his duty to cure. The frontispiece calls for no 
interpreter, though the scrupulous housekeeper might 
think it needs an apologist. It shows a kitchen with 
poultry, fruit, and vegetables strewn over the floor as 
none but the artist would care to see them, and cooks, 
in the scantiest drapery, posing in the midst of the con- 
fusion ; prominent in the foreground, a Venetian plaque 
exactly like one on my dining-room mantelpiece, or for 
that matter like dozens shining and glittering from the 
darkness of the cheap Httle fish-shops of Venice. 
With these three editions of Apicius, I am content. I 
know ten are duly entered in the pages of M. Vicaire, 
but when a book figures so seldom in sale rooms and 
catalogues, I think I am to be envied my good fortune 
in owning it at all. 



79 

My next Latin work is De Ee Cibaria, by Bruyerin, 
which I have in the first edition, a thick, podgy octavo, 
pubhshed at Lyons by Sebastian Honorat in 1560. A 
more severe and solid page of type I have never seen. 
The quotations from Horace or Yirgil, breaking the so- 
lidity, seem hke indiscretions ; an air of undue frivolity is 
given when, toward the end, the division into short chap- 
ters results in two, three, and even four initial letters on 
a single page ; while a capital 'N, inserted sideways, and 
overlooked by author, printer, and proof-reader, is a posi- 
tive relief as the one sign of human weakness in all the 
eleven hundred and twenty-nine solemn pages. Bruyerin 
was a learned physician who translated Averroes and 
Avicenna, and who was sufficiently in favor at court to 
attend those suppers of Francis I., which, he explains, 
were served by Theologians, Philosophers, and Doctors. 
If it was from this company he derived his theory of food, 
it is alarming to consider the consequences to his contem- 
poraries. In any case, his book, to look at, is the most 
impressive in my hbrary. I have also a graceful quarto, 
called Juris Evidentise Demonstratio in Materia Alimen- 
torum et Sumptuum Litis, by Maria Francesco Cevoli, 
Florence, 1703, omitted from all bibliographies of cook- 



80 

ery books. But as it is concerned indirectly with nour- 
ishment, it seems to me eligible. Besides, it has many 
graces of outward form that appeal to the book lover, — 
a pleasant page well spaced and well printed, old paper 
mellowed and toned by years, a vellum binding ingen- 
iously patched. 

I may as well admit at once that unfortunate gaps occur 
not only in my Latin, but in aU my foreign sections. 
Naturally, one's spoils are richest in one's own country. 
When I travel on the Continent I keep my eyes open, and 
I receive many foreign catalogues. But that is not quite 
the same as being continually on the spot. After my 
English books, my Italian are the most numerous, be- 
cause mine is the rare good fortune to have had in Italy 
a friend who was as eager to collect for me as I am to 
collect for myself. Mr. Charles Godfrey Leland, who 
lived ia Florence, for several years haunted the old book- 
shops and barrows there in my behalf, and to htm I owe 
an imposing shelf of vellum-covered volumes, the titles 
of many in illuminated letteriag on their backs, often 
both binding and illumination being the work of his 
hands. A few prizes have also been captured by me in 
London, and altogether, if I boast of my Italian section, 



81 

it is with reason. Curiously, however, though it includes 
almost everyone of the amazing treatises of the sixteenth 
century, and though few if any of the nineteenth-century 
books are missing, the two intervening centuries are un- 
represented, — the period, that is, to which belong by far 
the larger part of my EngUsh series. 
But had the selection been dehberate, instead of the re- 
sult of mere chance, it could not have been better. The 
Italian cookery books were the most important published 
anywhere, in the sixteenth century. Italy then set the 
standard of cookery, as of all the arts, for the world. 
Even the French looked up to the Italian chef as to the 
Italian painter or sculptor. Historically, these old vol- 
umes are indispensable to the student of the Renaissance. 
BibhographicaUy, too, they have their charm : being often 
dehghtful specimens of book-making, and, as often, of 
imquestionable rarity. For two or three I still look, but 
the most famous are already in my possession : the Ban- 
chetti of Christof oro di Messibugo, not in the first edition 
published at Ferrara in 1549, but in the second with the 
title changed to Libro !N^ovo, printed In Venetia al segno 
di San Girolamo in 1552, — a little shabby octavo in 
cracked vellum; La Singolare Dottrina of Domenico 



82 

Romoli, a digBified stout octavo which I have in the first 
edition, bearing the date 1560, and the name of the printer, 
Michel Tramezino, who seems to have had something 
like a monopoly of cookery books in Yenice ; the Opera 
of Bartolomeo Scappi, another of Tramezino's pubhca- 
tione, also mine in its first edition, 1570, — a nice, fat, 
substantial octavo in its old vellum covers, but compressed 
into half the thickness between the shining calfskin with 
which Sala bound the second edition — 1598 — which I 
secured at his sale ; II Trinciante of Vincenzo Cervio, my 
only copy, Giovanni Yacchi's edition of 1593, the first 
having been issued by the indefatigable Tramezino in 
1581 ; Castor Durante's Tesoro deEa Sanita, one of my 
compensations, as the first of my two editions (Yenice, 
Andrea Muschio, 1586), is a year earher than the first 
known to M. Yicaire. You see, I enjoy occasional mo- 
ments of superiority, if I do suffer occasional humiha- 
tions. 

My Italian is no great thing to boast of, but, with the help 
of a dictionary, I have gradually read enough to learn 
that these old books are delightftdly amusing. It is their 
close relationship to the church that strikes me above aU. 
" Take pride from priests and what remains ? " some- 



L A SINGOLARE 

DOTTRINA DI M. DOMRNICO 
Romolifofratumittato Panunto , 

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TannoaPrcncipi. 

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tutti gti animali , & pefci , eS" di tutte U 

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83 

body once said to Yoltaire. " Do you then reckon glut- 
tony for nothing? " was his answer. Certainly, in the Italy 
of the Renaissance, gluttony seems to have been the chief 
resource of Popes and Cardinals, who were no longer 
quite so siu-e that man was placed on earth to gather bit- 
ter fruit. The distinguished cooks of the period, whose 
names have come down to us, were with scarcely an ex- 
ception as dependent on church patronage as the distin- 
guished painters and sculptors. When they imdertookto 
write on their art, their books were pubUshed, as every 
title-page records, " Col Privilegio del Sommo Pontefice," 
and as a rule were dedicated to, or at least inspired by, 
the priest or church dignitary ia whose household the 
author served. Messibugo, a native of Moosburg, Bava- 
ria, who settled in Italy and wrote in Italian, was cook to 
the Ulustrissimo et Eeverendissimo Signore, il Signor 
Don Hippolito da Este, Cardinal di Ferrara, to whom he 
offered his Banchetti. Scappi was cuoco secreto (private 
cook) to Pius v., and his treatise was written chiefly for 
the instruction of Giovanni, a pupil recommended by 
Cardinal Carpi. Cervio and his editor ]^arni were each 
in turn trinciante, that is, carver, to Cardinal Alessandro 
Farnese, whose name graces the dedication. RomoU was 



8* 

cook to a Pope — I have not yet been able to find out 
which Pope — and to a Cardinal. It seems almost like 
heresy when Castor Durante, a physician who ventured 
to write on the subject, dedicated his Tesoro to a lady, la 
Signora Donna Camilla Peretta, and yet she, I fancy from 
her name, was a near relation of Pius V. 
If there is one feature all these books have in common, 
it is a love of pageantry, eminently characteristic of the 
Renaissance. Popes and Cardinals, who overloaded their 
churches with ornament, who covered the walls of their 
palaces with splendid pictiires and gorgeous arabesques, 
whose very costume added to the pageant into which they 
turned their daily existence, would have had no appetite 
for the meal that did not contribute its share to the great 
spectacle of life. The simplest dish was transformed into 
a bewildering harmony of color, a marvelous medley of 
spices and sweets, and when it came to the composition 
of the menu for a feast, the cook soared to heights 
of poetic imagination, now happily unattainable. It was 
over these menus he loved to linger at his desk as in his 
kitchen. Messibugo frankly confessed the subject that 
engrossed him in the title of his book, which, I cannot 
help thinking, as Lamb said of Thomson's Seasons, looks 



85 

best when, like my copy picked up by my husband in an 
old bookshop of Siena, it is a httle torn and dog's-eared, 
with sullied leaves and a worn-out appearance, for its 
shabbiness shows that generations have had as much joy 
in the reading as the Cardinal had in the eating. The 
banquets, in which I am afraid lurked many a magnifi- 
cent indigestion, covered twenty years, from the first on 
the 20th of May, 1529, — the feast of San Bernardino is 
Messibugo's pious reminder, — and were designed on a 
scale and with a spectacular splendor that fairly stag- 
gers the modem weakling. An Itahan Inigo Jones build- 
ing up the stage for a masque, one might think, not the 
cook dishing up his dinner. A terrace or a fair garden 
became the scene, cypress and orange groves the back- 
groimd, courses were served to the sound of " divine 
music " and interrupted by the wit of a pleasant farce. 
And yet, these were the conamonplaces of feasting. Cer- 
vio's banquets were far more amazing, or, it may be, he 
had a prettier talent for description. Pies from which 
outstepped little blackamoors bearing gifts of perfumed 
gloves, or rabbits with coral beads on their feet and sil- 
ver bells round their necks; castles of pastry with sweet- 
smeUing fire issuing from the ramparts; white peacocks 



86 

served in their feathers to look alive ; statues of the Horse 
at the Capitol, of Hercules and the Lion in marchpane; 
a centre table of a hundred lovely ladies; a beautiful gar- 
den — bellissimo giardino — all in paste and sugar, with 
fountains playing, statues on terraces, trees bearing boxes 
of sugar plums, a fish-pond, and, for the beautiful ladies, 
little nets to go fishing with if they would; — such are a 
few of Cervio's flights of fancy for great occasions : the 
wedding of the Duke of Mantua, for instance, or the re- 
ception of Charles V. by Cardinal Campeggio. This was 
the Cardinal who, when he went to England on business 
connected with the divorce of Henry VHI. and Queen 
Katharine, was charged by the Pope with a private mis- 
sion to look into the state of the kitchens of the king and 
of the people, so that no doubt he was qualified to appre- 
ciate Cervio's most dariag fantasies. But it seems as 
if the two hundred and eighteen receipts for fish Scappi 
gives must have more than satisfied a Pope whose usual 
aperitif before dinner was a visit to the hospitals and 
practices there too unpleasant for me to repeat. Scappi, 
however, was an artist, and when, in his portrait, the 
frontispiece to his book, I see the sad ruggedness of his 
face and the lines with which his brow is seamed and fur- 



87 

rowed, I attribute these signs of care to his despair over 
the Pope's hair shirt and all it stood for. He himself 
shared the ideal of his contemporaries. Not one could sur- 
pass him in the ceremonial banquet he prepared for the 
" Coronation " of Pius V., or for Cardinals in Conclave; 
not one could equal him in the more informal feasts he 
suggested for an August fast day after vespers in a vine- 
yard, or for a May afternoon in a garden of the Traste- 
vere,or for the cool of a June evening in Cardinal Carpi's 
vineyard on Monte Cavallo. And there is the intimate 
charm of the •' petits soupers " of the French court a 
couple of centuries later in his hght collations served, 
one at an early hour of a cold December morning after 
a performance of Plautus, another at Cardinal Bellaia's 
after a diverting comedy played in French, Spanish, Ven- 
etian, and Bergamesque. Whatever Pope Pius might 
do, Scappi kept up the best traditions of the Vatican. 
BQs book has the further merit of taking one behind the 
scenes ; in an unrivaled series of illustrations, it shoves the 
Vatican kitchen, airy and spacious as he says a kitchen 
should be, the Vatican scullery, cellai', and dairy, and 
every pot, pan, and conceivable utensil a Papal or any 
other cook could ever be in need of. Domenico Romoli, 



88 

though less gorgeous than Messibugo and Cervio, less 
charming than Scappi, outdid them in ambition. For to 
the inevitable description of occasional feasts, he added 
in anticipation of Baron Brisse, three hundred and sixty- 
five menus for the three hundred and sixty-five days of 
the year, and served them in the noble fashion of " those 
divine Florentine geniuses," his fellow citizens, who were 
masters of table decoration. In his treatise, however, one 
is conscious of the mxunmy at the feast. The private cook 
of Pope or Cardinal has need to keep his eyes open, he 
says with a sigh, and adds that he never goes to bed at 
night without thanking God for still another day passed 
in safety. The fear of poison haunted him, as it must 
have haunted many another man in his responsible posi- 
tion. Sala, on a fly-leaf of his copy of Scappi, noted his 
surprise to find no trace of poisons in the book. But I 
think there is more than a trace in Scappi's advice to 
build the kitchen apart from the house that none might 
enter unseen and tamper with the food. The ItaUan 
cook's bed in those days was not one of roses. 
It would be a mistake to think there were no frugal in- 
tervals in these old books. Even the prevailing flam- 
boyancy had its degrees. The feast might begin with 




ctonn» i:o> mormro 






89 

nothing more elaborate than melon and a shoe of ham or 
sausage served together, for all the world as at the last 
breakfast I ate in the trattoria at Lecco, where the Mi- 
lanese go for a Sunday outing in summer. Simple salads 
and salmis had their place among the intricate devices 
at Cardinal Perrara's table, and Messibugo himself gives 
ten different kinds of maccheroni, not leaving out the 
most frequent if least simple of all in to-day's bill of fare, 
Maccheroni alia Napoletani. Scappi is prodigal in his 
receipts for soups and fish, and caters specially for the 
convalescent. Such plain fare as the English veal pie — 
alia Inglese— was at times imported, though before it 
reached the Itahan table olives and capers had been 
added. But stiU, the principal attention was paid to feast- 
ing, the main tendency of the cookery book was toward 
excess and exaggeration, until the protest, which Du- 
rante's Tesoro probably seemed when it appeared in 
1586, was sorely needed. It was time to teach, not how 
to eat, but how, in eating, to preserve health. 
The next book in my Italian series marks a radical change. 
If in the sixteenth century the Italian kitchen was para- 
mount, in the seventeenth, the tables had turned and 
French cookery had become supreme. It is therefore 



90 

appropriate that my one Italian book of the period should 
be the translation of La Yarenne's f amousCuisiaier Fran- 
9oi8, since described as " the starting point of modem 
cookery," My copy of II Cuoco Francese was published 
in Venice in 1703, but the first edition appeared in 1693 
in Bologna, and so the book belongs by right to the 
same century as the original. Of the century that fol- 
lowed, my record is almost as barren. But, here again, 
had the choice been left to me, I should have preferred 
to all others the books that happen to have found their 
way to my shelves. For they include the principal works 
of Francesco Leonard!, who wrote them with that naive 
want of reserve pecidiar to distinguished cooks. The 
most elaborate is the Apicio Moderno in six volumes, to 
the collector an indispensable sequel to the fifteenth cen- 
tury Apicius. My copy is dated 1807, but the first edi- 
tion appeared before 1800. Another is the Pasticciere 
air Uso Moderno, Florence, 1797, written when, after 
serving the Marechal de Eicheheu, and going through 
several campaigns with Louis XV., Leonardi had become 
chef to Catherine IT., Empress of all the Eussias, to whom 
his French training did not prevent his serving many 
Italian dishes. But he excelled even himself in the Gi- 



91 

anina ossia la Cuciniera delle Alpi (the date carefully 
blotted out on the title-page of my copy, and the book, 
to my astonishment, unknown to M. Yicaire). It was a 
legacy, he says, left him by an accomplished lady whom 
he described as the hostess of an inn on the MontCenis, 
but whom I suspect to have been one of his own inven- 
tions. Xot over his most inspired dish did he grow so 
lyrical as over the story of her happy wooing by the chef 
Luneville in the kitchen of her father's inn at Neustadt. 
He makes you feel there is more romance in the Court- 
ship of Cooks than in all the Loves of the Poets or Tra- 
gedies of Artists' Wives, and, if only for the sake of the 
grandiloquent Preface that tells the tale, I recommend 
this work, his masterpiece. 

With Leonardi, I bring the record of my Italian books to 
an end. The nineteenth century produced a large Ubrary 
on the subject of cookery, and most of the volumes in it 
I have, but they open an entirely new chapter in the hter- 
ature of the kitchen. 

My French books have been chosen as kindly by chance 
as my Italian. I still wait for the collector's prizes — 
Taillevent's Yiandier (about 1490), the Eoti-Cochon 
(about 1696), Le Pastissier Frangois (1655), and I sup- 



92 

pose I shall go on waiting till the end, so extremely rare 
are they. But in the history of cookery they do not hold 
the indispensable place of the three most famous books 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries : La Va- 
renne's Cuisinier Francois (1651), Les Dons de Comus 
(1739), La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise (1746), and these I 
do own in interesting editions. The change that had 
come over the spirit of the kitchen is at once revealed in 
the rank of its new patrons. The church had ceased to 
be the controlling power. La Yarenne was maitre d'hotel 
to the Marquis d'Uxelles ; Marin, author of Les Dons 
de Comus, was chef to the Marechal de Soubise, who did 
pay his cooks, however other men in his service might 
fare ; and if the author of La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise pre- 
ferred to remain anonymous, his claim to favor was no 
ecclesiastical recommendation, but his own excellence as 
cook. Here was change indeed. But there was a still 
more vital difference. The Italian cookery books of the 
sixteenth century were as flamboyant as the kitchen they 
immortalized. In the French of the seventeenth, the 
genius of the French people for order, for harmony of 
balance, in a word, for style, had asserted itself. Perfec- 
tion of form — that is what the French have striven for 



L, \}i 







TouS '^tc fs cLjru r r J. / / 



93 

in all their arts, and cookery was no exception. Even 
under Louis XIY., who was blessed with a phenomenal 
appetite and more phenomenal capacity, dinner became 
a work of ai't, admirably rounded out, compared to the 
unspeakable medleys and discords, the barbarous profu- 
sion in which Popes and Cardinals a century earlier had 
found their pleasure. It was for a great principle Vatel 
killed himself when the fish did not arrive in time for 
the royal dinner at Ch antilly . And the cooks brought the 
same order to their books. If La Yarenne's has been de- 
scribed as " the starting point of modern cookery," it is 
because there is a method in his treatment of the subject, 
never before attempted, seldom since surpassed. And 
he wrote it at a time when, in England, Queen's Clos- 
ets and Cabinets were being opened by titled dilettanti 
and obsequious courtiers. Compared to contemporary 
English books, it is as the masterpiece of Claude to the 
httle pictures that many accomphshed ladies besides Mrs. 
Pepys and Pegg Penn were turning out for the edifica- 
tion of their friends. He went to work as systematically 
as a chemist classifying gases and acids, or as an astrono- 
mer designing a chart of the heavens. Soups, Pish, En- 
trees, Eoasts, Sauces, — a whole " artillery of sauces," 



9* 

— Entremets, were treated in their respective sections 
and correct order. His dishes did stand upon the order 
of their serving and his book was a training in itself. 
Its pages may be turned with the same confidence that 
carries the student through the galleries of French paint- 
ings in the Louvre — the certainty that all wiU be accom- 
plished, correct, distinguished. Nor do I find that this 
method put a curb upon La Varenne's imagination, a re- 
straint upon the expression of his individuaUty. He was 
a man of conscience, who wrote because he felt it right 
the pubhc should profit by his experience and share his 
knowledge. But though his style has greater elegance 
and restraint than Sir Kenelm Digby's or Lord Euth- 
ven's, it is as intimate and personal. " Bien que ma con- 
dition ne me rende pas capable d'un coeur heroique," he 
tells the Marquis d'Uxelles in a dedication that is state- 
liness itself, " elle me donne pourtant assez de ressente- 
ment poxu- ne pas oublier mon devoir; " and he concludes 
with the assurance that the entire work is but a mark of 
the passion with which he has devoted, and will ever de- 
vote, himself to the service of Monseigneur, whose very 
humble, very obedient, very grateful servant he is. Here 
and there in the text, he interrupts his technical direc- 



95 

tions for such a graceful little touch as the advice to gar- 
nish sweet dishes with the flowers that are in season, or 
the reminder that heed paid to any other such " petites 
curiosites " can but add to the honor and respect with 
which the great should be served. It is pleasant to find 
his successors profiting by these pretty hints, as well as 
by his masterly method. It was a distinct compliment to 
La Varenne, when Massialot, in the ISTouvelle Instruction 
pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits (1692; I 
only have it in the 1716 edition), gave one entire section 
as guide to the flowers in season, month by month, for 
the decoration of dishes, and another to the " delicate 
hqueurs," made from roses, violets, pinks, tuberoses, jas- 
mine, and orange flowers, for aU the year round. 
La Yarenne's book was an immediate and continued suc- 
cess. By 1652 there was a second edition, by 1654, a 
third. M. Yicaire counts seventeen before he finishes his 
hst. I have the fourth, published at the Hague by Adrian 
Ylacq and ranked by some collectors with La' Varenne's 
more famous Pastissier Francois in the Elzevir edition. 
The Cuisinier Franyois never fetched three thousand 
dollars. In special binding, it has gone up to over a hxm- 
dred, but ten is the average price quoted by bibliogra- 



96 

phers. I paid six for mine, bought, in the way Mr. Lang 
deplores, from a catalogue, without inspection. But I 
have no quarrel with the little duodecimo, yellow and 
worn, more than doubled in size by the paper of nearly 
the same date bound up with it. A few receipts in old 
German writing explain the object of this paper, but its 
owners, many or few, have left it mostly blank, the envy 
now of every etcher who sees it. I also dehght in a later 
edition, without a date, but published probably some- 
where between 1695 and 1715, by Pierre Mortier in Am- 
sterdam. It has a curious and suggestive frontispiece, 
an engraving of a fine gentleman dining at a table set 
directly in front of the kitchen fire, with the chef himself 
in attendance, and it includes other works attributed to 
La Varenne. One is Le Maistre d'Hostel et le Grand 
Ecuyer Tranchant, a treatise originally published in 
L'Eeole Parf aite des Officiers de Bouche, which was ap- 
propriated and translated into English by Giles Rose in 
1682, with the same dramatic diagrams of trussed birds 
and skewered joints, the same wonderful directions for 
folding napkins into beasts and birds, " the mighty pretty 
trade " that, when it reached England, enraptured Pepys. 
Thanks to this volume, my works of La Varenne are 



97 

almost complete, if my editions, bibliographically, leave 
something to be desired. 

When Marin wrote his book, a little less than a hmidred 
years afterwards, the art had made strides forward in 
the direction of refinement and simplicity. Louis XIV. 
ate well, but the Eegent and Louis XY. ate better. It 
was probably due to the Grand Monarque's abnormal 
stomach, which, I have seen it stated, was discovered 
after death to be twice the average size, that a suspicion 
of barbarity lingered in his day. But with the return of 
the royal organ to normal limits quality triumphed over 
quantity. I have not forgotten that Dr. Johnson, when 
he visited France, declared the French kitchen gross. 
But then Dr. Johnson was not an authority in these 
matters. If the word of any Enghshman carries weight, 
I would rather quote a letter Kichard West wrote to 
Walpole in the very year that Marin's book was published, 
as a proof that the distinction between English and 
French ideals was much the same then as now. " I don't 
pretend," he says, " to compare our supper in London 
with your partie de cabaret at Eheims; but at least, sir, 
our materials were more sterling than yours. You had 
a goute forsooth, composed of des fraises, de la creme. 



98 

du vin, des gateaux, etc. We, sir, we supped a I'An- 
gloise. Imprimis, we had buttock of beef and Yorkshire 
ham; we had chicken, too, and a gallon bowl of sallad, 
and a gooseberry tart as big as anything." Might not 
that have been written yesterday ? But more eloquent 
testimony is to be had from the French themselves. 
Moderation ruled over those enchanting little feasts of 
theirs that, in memory, cannot altogether die : Madame 
Geoffrin's suppers for the elect, of chicken, spinach, and 
omelette ; Madame du Chatelet's with Voltaire at Cirey, 
" not abundant, but rare, elegant, and delicate," — and 
yet, it was Madame du Chatelet who rejoiced that God 
had given her a capacity for the pleasures of the table; 
a hundred others to us as irresistible. Or go to court, 
where the king's mistresses and courtiers were Yy'mg 
with one another in the invention of dishes graced with 
their own names, where even the more serious Queen 
played godmother to the dainty trifles we stiU know as 
Petites Bouchees a la Keine, where the famous tables vo- 
lantes recalled the prodigies of Cervio — there too bar- 
baric excess had gone out of fashion. I have space but 
for one example, though I could quote many as convin- 
cing, — Madame du Barry's dinner to the King: Coulis 



99 

de faisans; croustades du foie des lottes; salmis des be- 
cassines; pain de volaille a la supreme; poularde au 
cresson; ecrevisses au vin de Sauterne; bisquets de 
peches au Noyau ; creme de cerneaux ; — the dimier that 
won for the cook the first cordon Ueu. What an elegant 
simplicity compared to the haphazard profusion approved 
by Popes and Cardinals ! 

This simplicity rules in Marin's book. Throughout the 
three fat httle volumes, the method is beyond criticism. 
And he was more learned than La Yarenne, for whom 
I could wish, however, that his veneration had been 
greater. To make a point of dating the modern kitchen 
but thirty years back, when La Yarenne had been long 
in the grave, seems a dehberate insult. In the history of 
his art, prepared with the assistance of two accomplished 
Jesuits, and beginning with the first man who discovered 
the use of fire, he defines this modem kitchen as " chem- 
ical, that is, scientific." But for all his science, he did 
not disdain the graces of style, he did not forget he was 
an artist. Let the cook, he says, blend the ingredients 
in a sauce, as the painter blends the colors on his palette, 
to produce the perfect harmony : as pretty a simile as I 
can remember in any book in my collection, given as were 



100 

the chefs of all nations to picturesque phrasing. But a 
wider gulf than learning separates Les Dons de Comus 
from Le Cuisinier Fran§ois. La Yarenne's book was 
addressed to his fellow artists; Marin's was designed 
not only for the officers in great households, but for the 
little bourgeois, who, though limited in means, was wise 
enough to care for good eating. The idea did not origi- 
nate with him. As far back as 1691, Massialot had writ- 
ten his Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois (my edition unfor- 
tunately is 1714), the earhest book I know, it is but fair 
to add, in which the contents are arranged alphabetically: 
a plan copied by John Nott and John Middleton in Eng- 
land for their Cooks' and Confectioners' Dictionary, and 
by Briand, in France, for his Dictionnaire des Aliments 
(1750), a pretentious and learned work in three volumes. 
Next, Le Menage des Champs et de la Yille, ou Nou- 
veau Cuisinier Fran9ois (1710), considered all tastes, from 
those " des plus grands Seigneurs jusqu'a celles des bons 
Bourgeois," and was rewarded by being not only passed 
by the censor of the press, but recommended by him, in 
his official Approbation — a rare distinction. Neither of 
these books judged by its intrinsic merit could, however, 
compete with Les Dons de Comus. Marin was the genius 



101 

who, giving expression to the ideas of his time, made his 
treatise immediately the standard work on cookery. He 
was promptly flattered by wholesale imitation. In the 
Preface to the 1758 edition (which I have) he complains 
that in the twenty years since the first (which I have not), 
this compliment had been paid him with only too much 
sincerity. And, m truth, his followers did their best to 
capture his patron, the bourgeois, to borrow his weapons 
against artless extravagance, even to appropriate his 
similes. Menon's Science du Maitre d'Hotel Cuisinier 
(174:9) owes everything to Marin, to the very glibness 
with which the art not of painting, but of music, is held 
up as a guide to the cook in the composition of his ra- 
gouts, and this debt Marin is quick to admit. But, per- 
haps because he felt it too deeply, he says nothing of 
the more flagrant plagiarism in La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, 
which was addressed solely and entirely to the bourgeois 
of mediocre fortune, and so scored heavily ; while, re- 
membering Massialot, the author, with a stroke of genius 
denied to Marin, incorporated the idea in his title, an 
advertisement in itself. La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise ap- 
peared only six years after Les Dons de Comus, but in 
the competition that followed Marin was ecKpsed. Even 



102 

Mrs. Glasse's Art of Cookery, credited with the greatest 
sale of any book in the Enghsh language, was left far 
behind. M. Vicaire gives forty editions, and yet he does 
not know three out of my five. Studied under the last 
Bourbons, it was popular during the first Eepublic — An 
VI de la Republique is the date in one of my copies; fa- 
miliarly quoted by the Romanticists of 1830, the demand 
for it had not ceased in 1866, when the last edition I 
know of was issued. It was one of the first cookery 
books that appealed primarily to the people, and the peo- 
ple responded by buying it during a hundred years and 
more. 

Even after praise of simplicity was in every mouth, there 
were relapses. Thus, Menon, who wrote also a Maitre 
d'Hotel Confiseur (1788, my edition, the second), de- 
nounces the old elaborate edifices of pastry and sugar, 
overloaded with ornament and grotesque in design, only 
to evolve, out of the same materials, gardens with trees 
and urns, or classical balustrades with figures of Diana, 
Apollo, and JEneas, or temples of Circe, with Ulysses, 
pigs and all. " Quel agreable coup d'ceil ! " he exclaims 
in ecstasy, " quel gout 1 Quelle aimable symetrie ! " But 
it was just such masterpieces, just such exceptions to 



103 

the new rule, that encouraged French physicians in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to write on food 
from the hygienic point of view, as Bruyerin already had 
in Latin, and Castor Durante in Itahan. La Varenne 
and Marin, Menon and Massialot, did not bother about 
sovereign powders and patent pills in the way of Eng- 
lish writers on cookery. It was left to doctors to dogma- 
tize on their own art, and lay down the rules for " rhu- 
barb and sobriety." Louis Lemery, physician to Louis 
XIY., pubhshed in 1702 a Traite des Aliments, dedicated 
to M. Boudin, physician to the Dauphin, a treatise trans- 
lated into Enghsh, and, in the translation, passing 
through several editions, Li 1743, Bruzen de la Marti- 
nieres translated the old verses on the medical properties 
of meat and drink by John of Milan, a doctor, changing 
the title of the earher translations, L'Art de se passer 
de Medecin, into the more literally true L'Art de Conser- 
ver sa Sante. In 1789, Jourdain Le Cointe published La 
Cuisine de Sante, a large book in three volumes, revised 
by a fellow physician of Montpelier, and, could Le Cointe 
have had his way, France would have been as barren 
of sauces as England in Yoltaire's epigram. All these 
books I have, and I am not sure that I ought not to count 



104 

with them M. de Blegny's Bon Usage du The, du Gaffe 
et du Chocolat (1687), since its end was the preservation 
of health and the cure of disease, De Blegny was Con- 
seiller Medecin Artiste ordinaire du Roy et de Monsieur, 
and his book, charmingly illustrated in the fashion of the 
old Herbals, is dedicated to Messieurs les Doeteurs en 
Medecine des Facultes Provincialles et Etrangeres prac- 
tiquant a la Cour et a Paris. If the French have got 
over the fancy that coffee and chocolate are medicines, 
throughout the provinces in France tea is still the drink 
that cures, not cheers. 

It is as well the books of the nineteenth century do not 
enter into my present scheme. There would be too much 
to say of the new development in the hterature of cook- 
ery that began toward the end of the eighteenth, with 
Grimod de la Eeyniere, the EusMn of the kitchen, A 
new era opened with his Almanach des Gourmands; a 
new school of writers was inaugurated, which, before it 
was exhausted, had counted Brillat Savarin, the Marquis 
de Cussy, and Dumas Pere among its masters. 
In the books of other countries my poverty is more 
marked. I have but two or three German works, none 
of special note. I have nothing American earlier than 



105 

1805, but then comes an irresistible little volume bris- 
tling with patriotism, proclaiming independence in its 
very cakes. I have nothing Hungarian, Eussian, Portu- 
guese, or Dutch. A manuscript Romany cookery book, 
compiled by Mr. Leland, the Romany Rye, makes up as 
a curiosity for many omissions. The only other country 
with a definite cookery literature that contributes to my 
shelves is Spain, and that, merely to the extent of a dozen 
volumes. These are spoils brought home by my husband 
from a tour of the old bookshops of Madrid and Toledo. 
Few of my treasiires do I prize more than the Arte de 
Cocina, though it is in the fifteenth edition, with the 
date on the title-page provoMngly effaced. The first 
edition was published in 1617, and its author was Fran- 
cisco Martinez Montino, Cocinero Mayor del Rey — this 
particular Rey being none other than Philip TV. Here, 
then, you may learn what the Spaniard ate in the days 
when Velasquez painted. As yet, the facts I have 
gleaned are few, my Spanish being based chiefly on that 
comprehensive first phrase in Meisterschaft, which, 
though my pagsport through Spain, can hardly carry me 
through Spanish literature. I can make out enough, 
however, to discover that Montino, in the fashion of the 



106 

ItaKan writers of the Eenaissance, supplies menus for 
great occasions, but that he had not forestalled the French 
in writing with method. His book is a hodge-podge, Por- 
tuguese, Enghsh, German, and Moorish dishes thrown 
together anyhow, the whole collection ending unexpect- 
edly with a soup. But his pious Laus Deo on the last 
page covers many sins, and his index shows a desire for 
the system he did not know how to achieve. 'No less in- 
teresting is the I^uevo Arte de Cocina, by Juan Alti- 
miras. Thanks, I suppose, to the law of compensation, 
while my Montiiio is in the fifteenth edition, my copy of 
Altimiras is dated 1760, though M. Yicaire knows none 
earher than 1791. It has the attraction, first, of vellum 
covers with leather strings still in condition to be tied, 
and, next, of an edifjdng dedication to San Diego de 
Alcala, — Santo Mio is the author's familiar manner of 
address, and he makes the offering from the affectionate 
heart of one who hopes to enjoy the saint's company some 
day in heaven. After this, it is not surprising that the 
work should have been approved by high officials in the 
king's kitchen, and that a point is made of Lenten dishes 
and monastic menus. 
My remaining Spanish books, in comparison, seem com- 



NUEVO ARTE 

DE COCINA, 

S ACADO 

DE LA ESCUELA 

DE LA EXPERIENCIA 

ECONOMICA. 

SU AUTOR 

JVAN ALTIMIRAS, 

DEDICALE 

A SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA 




EN MADRID. 



For Antonio Perez de Soto. Ano de 1760. 

A txpenfas it Don feiro Jofefh Altnfoy Padilla , Li- 
hero de Camnrfi del Rey , dende fe hazard. 



107 

monplace. There is a little Arte de Eeposteria, by Juan 
de la Mata, Madrid, 1791, a small quarto in vellum covers 
that gives a whole chapter to the Aguas Heladas de 
Frutas, still one of the joys of Spain, and a recipe for 
Gazpachos, still one of its wonders. There is the Di- 
sertacion en Recomendacion y Def ensa del Famoso Vino 
Malagueno Pero Ximen, Malaga, 1792, with a wood-en- 
graved frontispiece that looks like the beginning of the 
now familiar cigar-box labels. But the other big and 
little volmnes are of too late a date for my present pur- 
poses. Many are translations of the French books of 
1830, and they reproduce even the lithographs and other 
illustrations published in the original works. 
Of course, it will be understood that I write solely of 
the books in my own collection, which I am not foolish 
enough to represent as exhaustive. Indeed, if I were, 
M. Vicaire's Bibliography would betray me at once. 
But for the collector the evil hour is when, folding his 
hands, he must admit his task completed. As long as 
there are gaps on my shelves, life will still hold the pos- 
eibihty of emotion. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



NOTE 

It will be understood, of course, that I do not aim at an exhaustive 
Bibliography. I have attempted nothing more ambitious than a 
list of my own books, and even that within hmits. I have thought 
it better, and more in keeping with the text, to bring it no fur- 
ther down than to the end of the Eighteenth Century. For this 
reason, I have omitted Eighteenth Century books that I have 
only in Nineteenth Century editions, and also modern reprints 
of early MSS. I have made an exception in favor of Grimod de 
la Reyniere's Almanach des Gourmands, simply because it marks 
the beginning of the new period, and helps to explain the limits I 
have deUberately set myself. Some day, I may be able to make as 
worthy a record of my Nineteenth Century books. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



LATIN 

APICIUS COELIUS. 

Apitii Celii de re Coquinaria libri decern. 
Suetonius Traquillus De Claris Gramaticis. 
Suetonius Traquillus De Claris Rhetoribus. 

{In fine:) Impressum Venetiis per SernardinumVenetum. It 
has no date, but is attributed to about 1486. Given as earli- 
est edition by most authorities. 4to, old vellum. 30 sheets, 
the pages not numbered. 

APICIUS COELIUS. 

Apicius Culinarius. 

{In fine:) Impressum Mediolani per magistrwm Guilermum, 
Signerre Rothomagensem. Anno dAi. Mcccclxxxxviii. die. xx. 
mensis Januarii. First dated edition, 4to. Half calf. 40 sheets, 
pages not numbered. This copy has on fly-leaf the book 
plate of " Georgius Klotz, M. D. Francofurti ad Moenum," 
and the autograph of "John S. Blackie, 1862." 



112 

APICroS COELIUS. 

Apicii Coelii de Opsoniis et Condimentis, Sive Arte Co- 
quinaria, Libri Decern. Cum Annotationibus Martini 
Lister, e Medicis domesticis Serenissimae Majestatis Re- 
ginae Annae, et ISTotis selectioribus, variisque lectionibus 
integris, Humelbergii, Barthii, Eeinesii, A Van Der 
Linden, & Aliorum, ut & Variarum Lectionum Libello. 
Editio Secunda, Longe auctior atque emendatior. 

Amstelodami, Apud Janssonio- Waesbergios 1709. 8vo, half 
calf. Frontispiece, engraving on copper, by J. Goeere. Dedica- 
tion, Preface, and Preliminary, 17 leaves + PP- 277 + Variae 
Lectiones, pp. 18, not numbered + Index pp. 25, not numbered. 

BEUYERINTJS CAMPEGIUS. 
De He Cibaria Libri XII Omnium Cibormn genera, om- 
nium gentium moribus, & usu probata complectentes, 
lo Bruyerino Campegio Lugdun authore, Prima Editio. 
Zdtgduni, Apud Sebast. Monoratum. 1560 Cum Privilegio Re- 
gio. 8vo, old vellum, the name and date in Uluminated letter- 
ing by Mr. Leland on back. Dedication and Index, 11 Leaves 
+pp. 1130. On last page, not numbered, after Finis : JAcgduni 
suis typis excudebat NICOLAUS EDOARDUS, CAMPANUS 
M.D.LX. On inserted leaves, the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph 
Pennell. . . . With kind regards of Charles G. Leland, Flor- 
ence, Deer. 25th 1901. A Christmas offering." 



2) 5 

RE CIBARIA 

LI BRI XXII 

OMNIVM CIBORVM 

gcncra,omnium gentium mo- 

ribiiSj&vfu probata 

comple(5tcntcs, 

l9.Sruyerifta Campegio Lugdun authore, 

P R-I M A E D 1 T I O. 




L VGDVNT, 

APVD SEBAST. HONO RATVM, 

M. D. L X. 

Cum Pciuilcgio Rcgto. 



113 

CUETIUS, MATTHAEUS. 

Matthaei Curtii Papiensis de Prandii Ac Caenae Modo 

libellus. 

Romae. Apud Pavlum Manutium, Aldi F. Cum privilegio Pii 
nil. Pont. Max. 1562. 4to, unbound. Title and Dedication, 
1 leaf + blank, 1 leaf + pp. 90. 

CEYOLI, MAEIA FRANCISCO. 

Juris Evidentiae Demonstratio in Materia Alimentorum, 
et Sxmiptuiim Litis. 

Floreniiae, 1703. Apud Petrum Matini Archiepisc. Typo- 
graph. Superiorum permiss. 4to, old vellum, with title ia old 
lettering on back, and on front in illuminated lettering, by- 
Mr. Leland. Genealogical table and Synopsis, pp. iv + pp. 72 + 
Index, pp. xxiv. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. 
Joseph PenneU. This book, very remotely aUied to the art of 
cookery, yet one concerning nourishment, is presented with 
the kind regards of Charles Godfrey Leland. Florence, Feb. 
14, 1902." 

ITALIAI^^ 

MESSIBUGO, CHRISTOFAEO DI. 

Libro N'ovo !N"el Qual s' Insegna A Far D' Ogni sorte di 
vivanda secondo la diversita de' tempi, cosi di carne 
come di pesce ne'l modo d'ordinar banehetti, apparecchiar 



114 

tavole fornir palazzi, & ornar camere per ogni gran 
Precipe. Opera assai bella, e molto Bisognevole a 
maestri di Casa, a Scalchi a Credenzieri, & a Cuochi. 
Composta per M. Christofaro di Messibugo & hora di 
novo stampata, con la sua Tavola ordinata, ove agevol- 
mente si trovar a ogni cosa. 

In Venetia Al Segno di San Oirolamo. 1552. 8vo, in vellum, 
evidently a page torn from an old illuminated MS. Wood- 
cut of kitchen on title page. Dedication and Errori, 2 leaves 
+ 115 leaves, the numbers repeated on last three, + Table of 
Contents, 6 leaves. 

SCAPPI, BAETOLOMEO. 

Opera Di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, Cuoco Secreto Di Papa 
Pio Quinto, Divisa in Sei Libri. Nel prime si contiene 
il ragionamento che fa 1' Autore con Gio. suo disce- 
polo. Nel secondo si tratta di diverse vivande di carne, 
si di quadrupedi, come di volatili. IS^el terzo si parla 
della statura, e stagione de pesci. IS^el quarto si mo- 
strano le liste del presentar le vivande in tavola, cosi di 
grasso come di magro. Nel quinto si contiene V ordine 
di far diverse sorti di paste, & altre lavori. Nel sesto, 
& ultimo libro si ragiona de' convalescenti, & molte altre 
sorti di vivande per gli infermi. Con il discorso fune- 



{jirji,it» con i'lurftriiii' 



ffi*fir*Ns..N 



% 'I ) 



'ij Aljl... 






7*t. 






il' 



• - r^-'---^^ 






5 



torchio 



u 






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— B-... 



^ 






^f,.T^^^.,^f»m,TM^ >.^^rT^^,TOt i-^Vr ,nET,,v^.nj^ „,^ 




\, 
















i',i.roio^i' 



*i^^ 



5 i f; 



J. t- 



<^ 









/^ '''^''^'i'j'ii'v,o;'<:SJ» ; njiliill'":' '■'■■■ ""^L'i!!'r:"'3''\P;^^f 




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C'criz 



1?^ 7 A r T(v>mi-*i<«1"<'\'l iv ■^W'^Vt;.[^t'l^]p-p»>ffjSp^(<}[f^-(fffj^f»Wf|^ 



(w!w»s^'»'«3j*(r^«" -vr^r^l^^^j^'Ay ^ y «L(^^»f^ 




115 

rale che fu f atto nelle essequie di Papa Paulo III. Con 
le figure che fanno bisogno iiella cucina, & alii Eeve- 
rendissimi nel Conclave. First Edition. 

Col privilegio dd Sommo Pontefice Papa Pio V. & dell JMii- 
striss. Senato Veneto per atmi X^X. 1570. The name of the 
publisher, JVIichiel Tramezino, appears in Concession on first 
and second leaf. 4to, in old vellum, with old lettering on back. 
Concession and Dedications, 4 leaves + engraved portrait of 
Scappi + 372 leaves. Then follow 4 leaves of explanation of 
the engravings, and 27 engravings on copper of the kitchen 
and kitchen utensUs. This copy has on inside of cover the 
book plate of " WiUiam Horatio Crawford, Lakelands, Cork." 

SCAPPI, BAETOLOMEO. 

Opera Di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, Cuoco Secreto Di 

Papa Pio Quinto, etc. 

Jn Venetia, 1598. Appresso Alessandro Vecchi. 4to, in modern 
calf. Frontispiece, unsigned engraving on copper, portrait of 
Scappi. Concession and Dedication, 2 leaves + 4 woodcuts 
of kitchen and kitchen utensDs + 311 leaves. This copy has, 
written on fly-leaf : " George Augustus Sala, Brighton, 1880. 
Note the curious engravings of culinary utensils. I cannot 
find any directly poisonous recipes among the formulas of the 
' Cuoco Secreto.' Possibly they never passed out of the MS. 
form." Sala's autograph and "46 Mecklenburgh Square, W. 
C.,May 1st, 1884," on title page. 



116 

KOMOLI, DOMENICO. 

La Singolare Dottrina di M. Domenico Eomoli sopra- 
nominato Panunto, Dell' ufficio dello Scalco, dei condi- 
menti di tutte le vivande, le stagioni che ei convengono 
a tutti gli animali, vecelli, & pesci, Banchetti di ogni 
tempo, & mangiare da apparecchiarsi di di, in di, per 
tutto 1' anno a Preneipi. Con la dichiaratione della 
qualita delle carni di tutti gli animali, & pesci, & di 
tutte le vivande circa la sanita. Nel fine vm breve trat- 
tato del reggimento della sanita. Opera sonrmamente 
utile a tutti. 

Col Privilegio del Sonimo Pontefice, & delV lUustr. Senato 
Veneto per anni XX. 1560. 8 vo, in old vellum. Title, Dedi- 
cation, Table of Contents, etc., 16 leaves + 376 leaves. 

DURANTE, CASTOR. 

H Tesoro della Sanita, Di Castor Durante da Gualdo, 
Medico, & Cittadino Romano. Nel quale s' insegna il 
modo di conservar la Sanita, & prolungar la vita, et si 
tratta Della Natura De' Cibi, & de' Rimedij de' nocu- 
menti lore. Con la Tavola Delle Cose Notabili. 

In Venetia, 1586, Appresso Andrea Muschio. 8vo, old vel- 
lum. Title, sub-title. Dedication, etc., Table of Contents, 8 
leaves + pp. 328. On inserted leaf, inscription: "To Mrs. J. 



117 

PennelL 11 Tesoro della Sanita. Venice, A. D. 1586. This 
rare work is, notwithstanding its title, simply a Cook-Book, 
treatiag of the different kinds of food and their preparations. 
It is curious as containing poems on every subject of which it 
treats. Charles G. Leland." 

DURANTE, CASTOR. 

II Tesoro della Sanita Di Castor Durante da Gualdo, etc. 

In Venetia, Appresso JJucio Spineda. 1605. 8vo, in old 
vellum. Title, sub-title. Dedication, Table of Contents, etc., 
8 leaves + PP- 324. On inserted leaf, inscription: " II Tesoro 
Sanita. To Mrs. Joseph Pennell, with kind regards of Chas. 
G. Leland, etc., etc." 

CERVIO, VEN^CEN^ZO. 

H Trinciante Di M. Yincenzo Cervio, Ampliato et A 
Perfettione ridotto dal Cavalier Reale Fusoritto da 
Narni, Gia Trinciante dell' Illustrissimo & Reveren- 
dissimo Signor Cardinal Parnese, & al presente dell' 
Illustriss. Signor Cardinal Mont'alto. Con diverse 
aggiunte f atte dal Cavalier Reale, & dall' istesso in questa 
ultima Impressione, aggiuntovi nel fine un breve Dialogo 
detto il Mastro di Casa, per governo d' una Casa di 
qual si voglia Principe con li Offitialinecessarij, utile & 
giovevole a ogni Cortigiano. 



118 

Con Privilegio del Sommo Pontefice, e lAcenza c?e' Superiori Ad 

Istanza di Giidio Burchioni. In Roma. Nella Stampa del 
Gabbia. 1593. 4to, in old vellum. My copy incomplete to 
page 14. In aU, pp. 162. At the end, Begistro. -\- A B C D 
E F G H I K L. Tutti sono quaderni, eccetto che & duerno, 
& Iterno, & K duerno. In Roma. Nella Stampa del Gahhia. 
1593. On inserted leaf, inscription : " Presented to Mrs. 
Joseph PeimeU, With kindest regards of Charles G. Leland. 
Florence May 26th 1898." 

MAGRI, DOMENICO. 

Yirtu Del Kafe Bevanda Introdotta ISTuovamente Nell' 
Italia. Con alcune osseryationi per conservar la sanita 
nella vecchiaia. All' Eminentissimo Signer Cardinal 
Brancacci. Seconda Impressione Con aggiunta del 
medesimo Autore. 

In Roma Per Michde Hercole. Con licenza cfe' Superiori. A ^ese 
di Giovanni Casone, aW Insegna di S. Paolo. 1671. 4to, un- 
bound. Pp. 16. The name of the author appears only on page 9. 

DB LA VARENNE, FRAKgOIS PIEREE. 
B Cuoco Francese Ove e Insegnata La maniera di 
condire ogni sorte di Yivande, E di fare ogni sorte di 
Pasticeierie, e di Confetti, Conforme le quattro Stagion 
deir Anno. Per il Signer De La Varenne Cuoco Mag- 



119 

giore Del Sig. Marches. D'Uxelles, Trasportato Nuova- 
mente dal Francese all' Italiana favella. 

In Yenetia. Per Lorenzo Baseggio. Con Lice. dS 8up. 1703. 
12ino, in vellum. Title and Table of Contents, 12 leaves + 
pp. 420. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. J. Pen- 
nell, With kindest regards of Charles G. Leland. Florence. 
March 28th 1897. Entirely bound by the donor ! A curious 
and very rare work from old sources. It contains valuable 
recipes in sweets, e.g. how to candy violets and other flowers." 
On second inserted leaf : " Fon tiro kamlo Kako, se akovo 
delaben C. G. L." 

LEONARDI, FRAJ^CESCO. 

H Pasticciere AH' Uso Moderno, E Sul Gusto Del Pre- 
sente Secolo Dato in Luce Da Francesco Leonardi, Gia' 
Cuoco di Sua Maesta' Caterina 11. Imperatrice di tutte 
le Russie. 

In Firenze. Presso Giuseppe Lmhi in Faccia cd Fisco. Con 
Approvazione, 1797. 12mo, in parchment by Mr. Leland. 
Pp. 272. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " Mrs. J. Pennell, 
with kindest regards of Charles G. Leland, etc." 

LEOITARDI, FRANCESCO. 

Apicio Moderno Di Francesco Leonardi. Edizione Se- 
conda, Reyista, Corretta, ed Accresciuta Dall' Autore. 



120 

In Roma. Nella Stamperia del Giunchi, presso Carlo Mbrdae- 
chini. Con Approvazione. 1807. 6 vols. 8vo, in parchment 
by Mr. Leland. In Vol. I : Title page, Preface, etc., pp. LVIII. 
+ pp. 296. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph 
PenneU, With kindest regards of Charles G. Leland, as a 
seasonable Christmas offering. Florence Dec. 25, 1897." 

LEONAEDI, FKANCESCO. 

Gianina ossia La Cuciniera Delle Alpi, Di Francesco 

Leonardi. 

Roma. Con lAcenza <?e' Superiori. Date blotted out in my 
copy. 3 vols. 8vo, in parchment, with illuminated lettering 
on back, by Mr. Leland. In Vol. I : pp. 319. On inserted leaf, 
the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph PenneU with kind regards of 
Charles Godfrey Leland. Florence, Feb. 13. 1899, etc." 

FEENCH 

DE LA YARENNE, FEANgOIS PIERRE. 

Le Cuisinier Francois. Enseignant la Maniere de bien 
apprester et assaisonner toutes sortes de Viandes grasses 
& maigres, Legumes, Patisseries, & autres mets qui se 
servent tant sur les Tables des Grands que des par- 
ticuliers. Avec Une instruction pour faire des Con- 
fitures : Bt des Tables necessaires. Par le Sieur De La 



L E 

CUISINTER 

FRANCOIS. 

ENSEIGNANT LA MA- 
niere de bien appreftcr & aflfaifon- 
nertoUtesfortesdeViandes gra(Tcs& mai- 
grcs. Legumes, PatifTeries , 8c autres tnets 
qui feferventtant furlesTablesdcsGrands 
que des parti culiers. 

Avec 
Vne inflructm pour faire des Conptaret: 

Etdtt Tablesriectjfairts. 
ParleSieur 

DE LA VARENNE 
Efcuyer, &c. 

DtrnienEdition augmentie O'corrigit- 
^ LA H AT Ei 



Chez Adkian Vlacq.* 
M. DC.LVI. 



121 

Yarenne, Eecuyer, &c. Derniere Edition augmentee & 
corrigee. 

A la Sdye, Chez Adrian Vlacg, 1656. 12mo, old calf. Title, 
Dedication, Tables, 5 leaves + pp. 426 + Table Generale, 14 
leaves. Bound up in same volume 78 leaves of blank paper. 

DE LA YARENNE, FRANgOIS PIERRE. 
Le Yray Cuisinier Francois. Enseignant La Maniere 
de bien apprester et aesaisonner toutes sortes de Yiandes, 
grasses et maigres, Legumes et Patisseries en perfec- 
tion, etc., Augmentee d'un nouveau Confiturier, qui 
apprend a bien faire toutes sortes de Confitures, tant 
seches que liquides, de Compostes, de Fruits, de Dra- 
gees, Breuvages delicieux, & autres delicatesses de 
bouche. Le Maistre d'Hostel Et le Grand Ecuyer- 
Tranchant, Ensemble d'une Table Alphabetique des 
Matieres qui sont traitees dans tout le Livi'e. Par le 
Sieur De La Yarenne, Ecuyer de Cuisine de Monsieur 
le Marquis d'Uxelles. Nouvelle Edition. 

A Amsterdam, Chez Pierre Mortier, Libraire sur le Yygendam, 
d la viUe de Paris. No date, but attributed to from 1690 to 
1715 by Vicaire. 12mo, old vellum. Frontispiece, engraving 
on copper of a kitchen. Title, Preface, and Tables, 11 leaves 
+ pp. 380 + Table Alphabetique, 2 leaves. 18 illustrations. 



122 

DE BLEGNY. 

Le Bon Usage Du The du Caffe et Du Chocolat Pom- 
la Preservation & pour la guerison des Maladies. Par 
Mr. De Blegny, Conseiller, Medecin Artiste ordinaire 
du Eoy & de Monsieur, & prepose par ordre de sa Ma- 
jeste, a la Eecherche & Verification des nouvelles decou- 
vertes de Medecine. 

A Paris, Chez Estienne Michalkt, rue S. Jacques, ci V Image 8. 
Paul. Avec Approbation et privilege du Roy. 1687. 12mo, 
old calf. Frontispiece, engraving on copper. Title, Dedica- 
tion, etc., 11 leaves + pp. 358 + Table des Chapitres, 2 leaves. 
12 engravings by Hainzebnan. 

LEMERY, LOUIS. 

Traite des Aliments, ou I'on trouve Par Ordre et Se- 
parement La difference & le choix qu'on doit f aire de 
chacun d'eux en particulier; les bons & les mauvais 
eff ets qu'ils peuvent produire ; les principes en quoy ils 
abondent; le temps, I'age & le temperament ou ils con- 
vicanent. Avec des Eemarques a la suite de chaque 
Chapitre, ou I'on explique leur nature & leurs usages, 
suivant les principes Chymiques, &Mechanique8. Par M. 
Louis Lemery, Docteur Eegent en la Faculte de Mede- 



l£^MM-Mj4s^LAiL2ld_-^ 




^.i-V a pre-pa,* cr If > /n 



J 



123 

cine de Paris, de 1' Academic Eoyale des Sciences. First 

Edition. 

A Paris, Ckez J. JB. Cusson et P. Witte, rue S. Jacques, au 
Norm de Jesus & au Bon Pasteur, vis d vis la rue du Pldtre. 
Avec Approbations <& Privilege du Roy. 1702. Small 8vo, 
old calf. Titles, Dedication, Preface, etc., 28 leaves + pp. 541 
+ Extrait du Registre, etc., 1 leaf. 

MASSIALOT. 

Le Nouveau Ciiisinier Royal et Bourgeois; Qui Ap- 
prend a Ordonner Toute sorte de Rep as en gras & en 
maigre, & la meilleure maniere des Ragouts les plus 
delicats & les plus a la mode, & toutes sortes de Patis- 
series: avec des nouveaux desseins de Tables. Ou- 
vrage tres-utile dans les Families, aux Maitres d'Hotels 
& Officiers de Cuisine. 

A Paris. Chez Claude Prudhomme, au Palais, au sixieme 
Pilier de la Grand'' SaUe, vis-d-vis VEcalier de la Cour des Aides, 
d la Bonne-Foy couronnee. Avec Privilege du Roy. 1714. 2 
vols. (Vol. II of my copy missing). Small 8 vo, old calf. Title, 
Preface, etc., 4 leaves + pp. 491 + Table des Mets, 11 leaves. 
11 Plates. 

DESTRUCTION, NOUYELLE. 

lEouvelle Instruction Pour les Confitures, Les Liqueurs, 



124 

et les Fruits : Ou I'on apprend a confire toute sorte de 
Fruits, tant sees que liquides, & divers Ouyrages de 
Sucre qui sont du fait des Officiers & Confiseurs; avee 
la maniere de bien ordonner un Fruit. Suite du Nou- 
veau Cuisinier Koyal et Bourgeois, egalement utile aux 
Maitres-d'Hotels, & dans les Families, pour S9avoir ce 
qu'on sert de plus a la mode dans les Repas. Nouvelle 
Edition, revue, corrigee & beaucoup augmentee. Avee 
de nouveaux Desseins de Table. 

A Paris, Chez Claude Prudhomme, au Palais, au sixieme Pilier 
de la Chand^ Salle, vis-d-vis VEscalier de la Cour des Aides, d, la 
Bonne- Foy couronnee. Avee Privilege du Soy. 1716. Small 
8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, and Table, 6 leaves + PP- 464 + 
Table des Matieres, Approbation, etc., 13 leaves. 3 plates. 

LIGEE, LOUIS (Attributed to). 
Le Menage des Champs et de la Yille; ou nouveau 
Cuisinier Fran9ois, Accommode au gout du Tems. Con- 
tenant tout ce qu'un parf ait Chef de Cuisine doit s§avoir 
pour servir toutes sortes de tables, depuis celles des plus 
grands Seigneurs jusqu'a celles des bons BoiU"geois, avee 
une instruction pour faire toutes sortes de Patisseries, 
confitures seches & liquides, & toutes les differentes 



125 

liqueurs qiu sont aujourd'hui en usage. IS'ouvelle 
Edition. 

A Paris, Chez Christ. David, Lihraire-Imprimeur, rue 8. Jacq. 
prh la Fontaine S. Severin, au JVbm de Jesus. Avec Privilege 
du Roi. 1739. 8vo, half calf. Title, Preface, Table, etc., 6 
leaves + pp. 473 + Table des Matieres, 4 leaves. On inside 
of cover, book plate of " Walter Charles James." 

DICTIONAIEE DES ALIMENS. 

Dictionaire des Alimens, Yins et Liqueurs, Leur Qual- 
ites, Leurs Effets, relativement aux differens ages, & 
aux differens temperamens; Avec La Maniere de les 
Appreter, Ancienne et Moderne, Suivant la methode des 
plus habiles Chef s-d' Office & Chefs de Cuisine, de la 
Cour, & de la Yille. Ouvrage tres-utile dans toutes 
les families. Par M. C. D. Chef de Cuisine de M. le 
Prince de * * * 

A Pari^. Chez CHssey, rue de la Yieille £ouclerie. Bordelet, 
rue Saint Jacques. Avec Approbation dt Privilege du Poi. On 
page xxviii, De Vlmprimerie de GHssey. 1750. 3 vols. 12nio, 
old calf. In Vol. I, Titles, Preface, etc., pp. xxviii + pp. 538 
+ Approbation, etc., 1 leaf. On inserted leaf, the inscription : 
"To Mrs. J. Pennell this book is presented with the kindest 
regards of her uncle : Charles G. Leland. Florence, Sept. 27, 
1901." 



126 

ECOLE DE SALERNE, L'. 

L'Art de Conserver Sa Saute, Compose par L'Ecole 
de Salerne. Traduction nouvelle en Vers Frangois, Par 
Mr.B. L. M. 

A Paris, Par la Compagnie des lAbraires. 1753. 8vo, in 
boards. Pp. 104 + Table, 2 leaves. My copy bound up with 
" La Cochlioperie," 1808. 

MARIN. 

Les Dons de Comus, ou L'Art de la Cuisine, Reduit en 
Pratique, ISTouvelle Edition, Revue, corrigee & aug- 
mentee par I'Auteur. 

A Paris, Chez Pissot, Libraire, Quai de Conti, ct la Croix d' Or, 
d, la descente du Pont Neuf, au coin de la Rue de Nevers. Avec 
Approbation et Privilege du Boi. 1758. 3 vols. 12mo, old 
calf. Frontispiece engraving on copper by Le Bas. In Vol. 
I : Avis and Preface, pp. xlviii + pp. 490. 

CHAMBRAY, G. DE. 

L Art de Cultiver les Pommiers, les Poiriers, et de Faire 
des Cidres Selon I'usage de la Normandie. Par M. le 
Marquis de Chambray. 

A Paris, Chez Oaneau, rue Saint- Severin, prh VEglise, avx 
armes de Dombes & d Saint-Louis. Avec Permission. 1765. 



L* A R T 

DE CONSERVER 

SA SANTE, 

CO M P O S t ? A K 

L'feCOLE DE SALERNE. 

Tnidudbioo nouvelle 

EN VERS FRANCOIS, 
Par Mr. B. L. M. 




K PARIS. 

Par la Compagnie des Libraires. 

M. OCC. LIIL 



127 

Small 8vo, old calf. Title and Preface, 2 leaves + pp. 66 + 
Approbation, 1 leaf. Bound up with my copy, "M6moire sur 
les Pommes de Terre, par M. Mustel," Rouen, de V Imprimerie 
de la Veuve Besongne, 1767; "Lettre. . . . Au sujet de la 
Culture des Pommes de Terre," Rouen, Chez Et. Vine. Machuel, 
1770; "Traite sur L'Acacia," Bordeaux, Chez les Frlres La- 
hottiere, 1762 ; and "L'Art de Cultiver les Peupliers d'ltalie," 
Paris, Chez la Veuve d'lToury, 1762. 

CUISINIEEE BOUEGEOISE, LA. 
La Ciusiniere Bourgeoise, Suivie de L'Office. A 
I'usage de tous ceux qui se melent de depensee de 
Maisons. Contenant la maniere de dissequer, connoitre 
& servir toutes sortes de Viandes, !Nouvelle Edition. 
Augmentee de plusieurs ragouts des plus nouveaux, & 
de differentes Eecettes pour lee Liqueurs. 

A Paris, Chez P. ChiiUaume Cavdier, lAhraire, Rue S. Jacques, 
auLysd'Or. 1777. 8vo, old calf. Title and Preface, 2 leaves 
+ pp. 418. 

CUISINLEEE BOUEGEOISE, LA. 

La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, Suivie de I'Office, a L'Usage 
de Tous Ceux Qui Se Melent de Depenses de Maisons. 
Contenant la maniere de connoitre, dissequer & servir 
toutes sortes de viandes; des avis interessans sur leur 



128 

bonte & sur le choix qu'on en doit faire. La fagon de 

faire des Menus pour les quatre Saisons, & des Eagouts 

des plus nouveaux; une explication de termes propres 

&, a I'usage de la Cuisine & de 1' Office; & une Liste 

alphabetique des ustensiles qui y sont necessaires. ISow- 

velle Edition, augmentee de plusieurs apprets qui sont 

marques par une Etoile. 

A £ruxeUes, Chez Franfois Foppens, Imprimeur lAbraire. 
1779. 2 vols. 8vo, paper covers. In Vol. I : Avertissement, 
Explication, etc. Pp. xxiv + pp. 320. 

CUISmiEEE BOURGEOISE, LA. 

La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, [etc. Title the same as in 
1777 edition.] 

A Paris, Chez les lAbraires Associes. 1786. 8vo, old calf. 
Title and Preface, 3 leaves + pp. 372. 

CUISIKIERE BOURGEOISE, LA. 

La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, [etc. Title same as in 1777 
edition.] 

A Paris, Chez Andre, Imprimeur-Libraire, rue de la Harpe, 
No. 477. An VI de la Republique. 8vo, paper boards, with 
title on back in illuminated lettering by Mr. Leland. Pp. 408. 
On leaf inserted, the inscription: " To Mrs. Joseph Pennell, 



L A 

CUISINIERE 

BOURGEOISEy 

S U I V 1 E 

DE L- OFFICE 

A I'ufage de tons ceux qiri fe melent de 
depenfes de Mailbns. 

Conunant la maniere de diffequer , eonnottre 
& fervirtoutix fortes deViandes , 

NOUVELLE EDITION. 

Augmentee de plufieurs ragoilts des plus nou. 
veaux , & de differentes Recettes pour lea 
Liqueurs. 




A PARIS, 

Ch« p. GuiLLAUME Caveljer , Libraifc > 
Rue S. Jacques, au Lys d'Or. 

M. DCC. L XXVII. 



129 

with love of Uncle Charles G. Leland; Florence, April 24, 
1902. A good clean copy of the Standard French Cook-book 
— the Preface is extremely clever." 

CUISDrtEEE BOURGBOISB, LA. 

La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise [etc. — same title as 1777 
edition, to] Derniere Edition, Augmentee de plusieurs 
ragouts des plus nouveaux, et de differentes recettes 
pour les liqueurs, avec une explication par ordre alpha- 
betique, des termes en usage pour la Cuisine et I'Office. 

A Lyon, Chez Amabk Leroy, Imprimeur-Libraire. 1802. 8vo, 
in paper boards. Title and Preface, pp. vi + pp. 384. On 
inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph Pennell, with 
kind regards of Charles G. Leland, Florence, May 28, 1897." 

La Science du Maitre D'Hotel, Confiseur, a L'Usage 
des Officiers, Avec des Observations Sur la connois- 
sance & les proprietes des Fruits. Enrichie de Des- 
eeins en Decorations & Parterres pour les Desserts. 
Suite du Maitre d'Hotel Cuisinier. Nouvelle Edition, 
revne et corrigee. 

A Pans. Par la Compagnie des lAhraires assodes. Avec 
Approbation et Privilege du Moi. At the end, De V Imprimerie 



130 

de Valleyre jeune. 1788. 8vo, in old calf. Title and Preface, 
pp. X + Premier Plan, etc., 1 leaf + pp. 525 + Tables, 13 
leaves. 5 plates. 

MENON. 

La Science du Maitre-D'Hotel Cuisinier, Avec Des 
Observations sur la Connoissance & les proprietes des 
Alimens. JS^ouvelle Edition, revue et corrigee. 

A Paris, Chez Les Libraires Associes. Avec Approbation et 
Privilege du Roi. 1789. 8vo, in old calf. Title and Disser- 
tation Preliminaire, pp. xxiv + pp. 554. 

LE COINTE, JOUEDAN. 

La Cuisine de Sante, Ou Moyens f aciles & economiques 
de preparer toutes nos Productions Alimentaires de la 
maniere la plus delicate & la plus salutaire, d'apres les 
nouvelles decouvertes de la Cuisine Fran^oise & Ita- 
lienne. Par M. Jourdain le Cointe, Docteur en Mede- 
cine; revu par un Practicien de Montpellier. Ouvrage 
destine a I'instruction des Gens de I'Art, a 1' amuse- 
ment des Amateurs & particulierement a la conservation 
de la Sante. 

A Paris, Chez Briand, Lihraire, Hotel de ViJUers, 'rue Pavee 
Saint-Andre-des-Arts. 1789. 3 vols. 8vo, half calf. In Vol. 
I : pp. 465. 1 plate. 



131 

SEYIS^IEEE, GEIMOD DE LA. 

ilmanach des Gourmands, ou Calendrier Nutritif Ser- 
rant de Guide dans les Moyens de Faire Excellente 
3here; Suivi de I'ltineraire d'un Gourmand dans divers 
[uartiers de Paris, et de quelques Yarietes morales, 
lutritives, Anecdotes gourmandes, etc. Par un Yieux 
^ateur. Seconde Edition revue et corrigee. 

A Paris. Chez Maradan, rue JPavee- Saint- Andre-des- Arts. 
iVb. 16. ^w XZ — 1803. 8 Vols. — from 1803 to 1812; in 1809, 
no number was published. 8vo, paper covers. In Vol. I: 
Title, Avis, etc., pp. viii + pp. 247. On inserted leaf, the 
inscription in verse : — 

Autolyc Soul I above brunette or blondness, 
Fondest of food, and fittest food for fondness, 
Who dost with thy divinely greedy art 
Win that within that 's underneath the heart, 
Accept — it leaves thee still my liver's creditor — 
This grace of greed from thy eupeptic Editor. 

H. C. 

liEY^IEEE, GEIMOD DE LA. 

Manuel des Amphitryons; contenant un Traite de la 
)issection des viandes a table, la ^Nomenclature des 
ilenus les plus nouveaux pour chaque saison, et des 
Clemens de Politesse gourmande. Ouvrage indispen- 
able a tous ceux qui sont jaloux de faire bonne chere. 



182 

et de la f aire f aire aux autres ; Orne d'un grand nombre 

de Planches gravees en taille-douce. Par I'Auteur de 

I'Almanach des Gourmands. 

A Paris, Chez Capelle et Henand, lAbraires- Commissionnaires, 
rue J. J. Bousseau. 1808. 8to, old calf. Frontispiece, etch- 
iag. Pp. 384. 16 etched plates. Inside the cover, the book 
plate of " Albert F. Sieveking." 

ENGLISH 

MAEKHAM, GEEYASE. 

The English Housewife. Containing The inward and 
outward Yertues which ought to be in a compleate Wo- 
man. As her sMll in Physicke, Surgery, Cookery, Ex- 
traction of Oyles, Banqueting stuffe, Ordering of great 
Feasts, Preserving of all sorts of "Wines, Conceited 
Secrets, Distillations, Perfumes, ordering of Wooll, 
Hempe, Flax, making Cloth, and Dying, the knowledge 
of Dayries, office of Malting, of Gates, their excellent 
uses in a Family, of Brewmg, Baking, and all other 
things belonging to an Houshold. A Worke generally 
approved, and now the fourth time much augmented, 
purged and made most profitable and necessary for all 
men, and the generall good of this Kingdome. By G. M. 



THE E NG LlSH 

H O V S E-^W 1 F E. 

CONTAINING 
The inward and outward Vermes which 

ought to be in a complcatc Woman. 

qJs hsrskiUin^hyfici^e, Surgery, QooJ^ry* 

Extradion of Oy Ics, Banqueting ftuffc^ Ordering of 
great Feafts^Prefcruing of all forts of Wines ,Concci- 
tedSecrets,Difiill/imas:^Perf(imtSfirderwgofW0o9y 
Hempe, Flax, making Cloth, and Dying, the know- 
ledge ofDayries, office of Malting, ofOates, 
iheir^xcelknt vfes in a Family,of Brew- 
ing, faking, and all other things 
belonging to an Houftiold. 

A Worke generally approued , and nov^ the fourth time mudh 
augmented, purged and made mofl profitable and 
neceHTary for all men , and the generallgood 
ofthi&Kingdome. 

By G, M. 




LON DON, 
Printed by NichoUs okes for John Hartsoh, andarcfe 
be fold at his fhop at-the fignc of the golden 
Vnicorac ia Pater, noftcr-row i^ji. 



183 

London, Printed by Nicholas Okes for John Harison, and 
are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the golden Uhicome 
in Pater-noster-row. 1631. 4to, half calf. Title, Dedication, 
Table, 5 leaves + pp. 252. 

DELIGHTES FOE LADIES. 

Delightes for Ladies, to Adorne their Persons, Tables, 
Closets and Distillatories : With Beauties, Banquets, 
Perfumes and Waters, Read, practise, and censure. 

Ziondon, Printed byH.Yl and are to bee sold by James Poler. 
1632. 12ino, old vellum. 96 leaves. Each page with a deco- 
rative border cut on wood. Title page of my copy much de- 
faced. Bound in same volume, 

CLOSET FOR LADIES, A. 

A Closet for Ladies and Gentlew^omen. Or, the Art of 
preserving. Conserving, and Candying. With the man- 
ner how to make divers kindes of Sirups, and all Mnde 
of banqueting stuffes. Also divers soveraigne Medi- 
cines and Salves for Sundry Diseases. 

Londcm, Printed by John Maviland. 1632. 96 leaves. The 

pages also with decorative border. 

MUFFETT, THOMAS. 

Healths Improvement: or. Rules Comprizing and Dis- 



134 

covering the Nature, Method, and Manner of Preparing 
all sorts of Food Used in this ISTation. Written by that 
ever Famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: Cor- 
rected and Enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in 
Physick, and Fellow of the CoUedg of Physitians in 
London. 

London, Printed by Tho : JVewcomb for Samuel Thomson, at 
the sign of the White Horse in Pauls Churchyard. 1655. 4to, 
modern calf. Title, Epistle, Table, pp. 8 + pp. 296. 

MOFFET, THOMAS. 

Health's Improvement. . . . To which is now prefix' d, 
A short Yiew of the Author's Life and Writings by 
Mr Oldys, and An Introduction by R. James, M, D. 

London ; PritUedfor T. Osborne in Grray''s-Inn,Vl4:Q. 8vo, old 
calf. Title, Epistle to the Reader, etc., pp. xxxii + pp. 398. 

COMPLEAT COOK, THE. 

The Compleat Cook. Expertly prescribing the most 

ready wayes, Whether, Italian, Spanish, or French. 

For dressing of Flesh, and Fish, Ordering of Sauces, 

or making of Pastry. 

London : Printed for JVath. Brook at the Angel in Com^hill, 
1655. 12mo, old calf. Pp. 123 + Table, 3 leaves. 



133 

CLOSET, THE QUEEN'S. 

The Queens Closet Opened. Incomparable Secrets in 
Physick, Chirurgery, Preserving, Candying, and Cook- 
ery; As they were presented to the Queen By the most 
Experienced Persons of our times, many whereof were 
honoured with her own practice, when she pleased to 
descend to these more private Recreations. Never 
before published. Transcribed from the true Copies of 
her Majesties own Receipt-Books, by W. M. one of her 
late servants. 

Printed for Nathaniel Brook, at the Angel in OomhiU, 1655. 
12mo, half calf. Title and Dedication, 6 leaves + pp. 192. 
Bound up with it, 

DELIGHT, A QUEEN'S. 

A Queen's Dehght, or The Art of Preserving, Con- 
serving, and Candying; as also A right knowledge of 
making Perfvmies, and Distilling the most Excellent 
Waters. Never before published. 

Printed for Nathaniel Brook, at the Angel in Comhill. 1655. 
Continues pagination of Queen's Closet to 296. Table for 
both books, and Publisher's Advertisement, 12 leaves. 



136 

DELIGHT, A QUEEN'S. 

[The same, in separate volmne. Later edition.] 

London, Printed for Obadiah JBlagrave at the Sign of the black 
Bear in St. Pauls Churchyard. 1683. 12mo, modern calf. 
Pp. 106 + Table, 2 leaves. 

CLOSET, THE QUEEN'S. 

The Queen's Closet Opened. . . . Corrected and Re- 
viewed with many New and large Additions : together 
with three exact Tables. 

London. Printed by J. W. for Nath. Brooke, at the Angel in 
Gresham^ College, near the Exchange in Bishops- Gate- Street. 
1668. 12mo, old calf. Frontispiece, engraving on copper, 
portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria. Portrait, title. To the 
Reader, etc., 6 leaves + pp. 191. 

RUTHVEN, PATRICK, LORD. 

The Ladies Cabinet Enlarged and Opened: Containing 
Many Rare Secrets and Rich Ornaments, of several 
kindes, and different uses. Comprized Under three gen- 
eral Heads. Viz. of, 1. Preserving, Conserving, Candy- 
ing, etc. 2. Physick and Chirurgery. 3. Cookery and 
Housewifery. Whereunto is added, Sundry Experi- 
ments and choice Extractions of Waters, Oyles, etc. 




pifJ' 1"^ 'Aflt'lji-oah'C 



. 'I 



137 

Collected and practised; By the late Eight Honorable 

and Learned Chymist, the Lord Ruthven. The second 

Edit, with Additions and A particular Table to each 

Part. 

London, Printed by T. M. for G. Bedell and T. CoUins at the 
middle- Temple Gate, Fleet-street. 1655. 12nio, old calf. Title, 
Dedication, etc., 4 leaves + pp. 252 + Table and Publisher's 
Advertisement, 8 leaves. 

MAT, ROBERT. 

The Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of 
Cookery. Wherein the whole Art is revealed in a more 
easie and perfect Method, than hath been publisht in 
any Language. Expert and ready wayes for the Dress- 
ing of all sorts of Flesh, Fowl, and Fish; the Raising 
of Pastes; the best Directions for all manner of Kick- 
shaws, and the most Poinant Sauces ; with the Tearms 
of Carving and Sewing. An exact Account of all 
Dishes for the Season; with other A la mode Curiosities. 
Together with the lively Illustrations of such necessary 
Figures as are referred to Practice. Approved by the 
Fifty Years Experience and Industry of Robert May, in 
his Attendance on several Persons of Honour. 



1S8 

London. Printed by B. W. for Nath. Brooke, at the Sign of 
the Angel in CornhiU. 1660. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, por- 
trait of Robert May. Frontispiece, Title, Dedication, etc., 16 
leaves + pp. 447 + Table and Publisher's Advertisement, 7 
leaves. Numerous illustrations, woodcuts, printed with the 
text. (In my copy, pp. 291-292 missing.) 

MAY, EOBBET. 

The Accomplisht Cook etc. — The Fourth Edition. 

London, Printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear in St Pauls 
Church-Yard, near the Little North-Door. 1678. 8vo, old calf. 
Frontispiece, same portrait. Frontispiece, Title, etc., 16 leaves 
+ pp. 461 + Table and Publisher's Advertisement, 5 leaves. 
Illustrations in text and four folded plates. 

DIGBY, SIR KENELM. 

The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme 
Digby Kt. Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several 
ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry- Wine, 
etc. Together with Excellent Directions for Cookery: 
as also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, etc. 
Published by his Son's Consent. 

London, Printed by E. G. & A. C. far H. Brome, of the West- 
End of St. PauVs. 1671. 8vo, in old calf . Title and Preface, 
2 leaves + pp. 251 + Table, 4 leaves. My copy foUows, in 



ililil 







ecu' i6>^ 






C'/LciccL 6'z . 



139 

the same volume. Sir Kenelm Digby's " Receipts in Physick 
and Chirurgery," which has as frontispiece a portrait of the 
author, engraved by Gross. 

EABISHA, WILL. 

The whole Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and 
fully manifested. Methodically, Artificially, and accord- 
ing to the best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, 
Dutch, etc. Or, A Sympathy of all varieties in JSTatu- 
ral Compounds in that Mysterie. Wherein is contained 
certain Bills of Fare for the Seasons of the year, for 
Feasts and Common Diets. Wherunto is annexed a 
Second Part of Eare Receipts of Cookery: with cer- 
tain useful Traditions. With a book of Preserving, 
Conserving and Candying, after the most Exquisite 
and Xewest manner : Delectable for Ladies and Gentle- 
women. 

London. Printed for E. Calvert^ at the sign of the black Spread 
Eagle, at the West end of St. Pauls. 1673. 8vo, old calf. 
Title, Dedication, etc., 10 leaves + the Table, pp. 19, the first 
12 not numbered, + pp. 289,+ Note to the Reader, etc., 3 leaves. 

WOOLLEY, HAira^AH. 

The Queen-Like Closet or Rich Cabinet. 



140 

Title-page and part of Dedication of my copy missing. 8vo, 
old calf. Pp. 344 + Table, Postscript, etc., 15 leaves. Fol- 
lowed by Supplement, or A Little of Every Thing Presented 
To all Ingenious Ladies and Gentlewomen, with separate 
title-page. London, Printed by T. It. for Richard Xiownds, 
and are to be Sold at the Sign of the White Lion in Duck-Lane. 
1674. Title, Dedication, etc., 6 leaves -|- pp. 194, but pages are 
missing at the end. This is one of the rarest of the Seven- 
teenth Century books. 

HAKTMAN, GEOEGE. 

Hartman's Curiosities of Art and IsTature : or The True 
Preserver and Restorer of Health . . . the Second Edi- 
tion, With a second part, entitled, Excellent Directions 
for Cookery; Together with the Description of an Use- 
ful Engin serving for the same ; and hkevpise for Dis- 
tiUing the Choicest and Best Cordial Waters. As also 
Select Receipts for Preserving, Conserving, and Candy- 
ing, etc. With a Collection of the Choicest Receipts 
for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry- Wine, etc. 

First part: Printed for A. G. at the Ring in Little Britain, 
Where is sold A thousand Notable Things to prevent the Plague, 
and all Distempers ; the Way to get Wealth, and the Way to save 
Wealth. Second part : London, Printed by T. B. for O. Hart- 
man Chymist. 1682. 8vo, old calf. Title, Dedication, etc., 8 
leaves + PP. 352 + Second Part, pp. 32. 



Ul 

ROSE, GILES. 

A perfect School of Instructions for the Officers of the 
Mouth: Shewing the Whole Art of A Master of the 
Household, A Master Carver, A Master Butler, A Mas- 
ter Confectioner, A Master Cook, A Master Pastryman. 
Being a Work of singular Use for Ladies and Gentle- 
women, and all Persons whatsoever that are desirous to 
be acquainted with the most excellent Arts of Carving, 
Cookery, Pastry, Preserving, and Laying a Cloth for 
Grand Entertainments. The like never before extant 
in any Language. Adorned with Pictures curiously 
Ingraven, displaying the whole Arts. By Giles Rose 
one of the Master Cooks in His Majesties Eatchen. 

Xiondon, Printed for H. Sentley and M. Magnes, III Russd- 
street in Covent- Garden. 1682. 8vo, old calf. Title, Dedication, 
etc., 12 leaves + pp. 563. Numerous Dlustrations, woodcuts, 
printed with the text. The book, " The like never before 
extant in any Language," is a translation of " L'Ecole Par- 
faite des OfBciers de Bouche," from which most of the illus- 
trations are taken. 

WHOLE DUTY OF A WOMAN, THE. 

The Whole Duty of a Woman: Or a Guide to the Fe- 
male Sex from the Age of Sixteen to Sixty, etc. . . . 



U2 

Also Choice Keceipts in Physick, and Chirurgery. 
"With the Whole Art of Cookery, Preserving, Candy- 
ing, Beautifying, etc. Written by a Lady. The Third 
Edition. 

London. Printed for J. GuiUim, against the Great James Tavern 
in Bishopsgate-street. 1701. 12nio, old calf. Title and Pre- 
face, 3 leaves + pp. 184 

WHOLE DUTY OF A WOMAN, THE. 

The Whole Duty of a Woman. . . . [Same as above.] 

The Eighth Edition. 

IjOiidon: Printed far A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch., at the Red 
Lyon in Pater-Noster Bow ; B. Ware., at the Sun and Bible, in 
Amen Corner ; and James Hodges, at the Looking- Glass on 
London Bridge. 1735. 12ino, modern calf. Frontispiece, 
woodcut of woman at prayers and in kitchen. Title and Pre- 
face, 3 leaves + pp. 167. 

KING, WILLIAM. 

The Art of Cookery, In Imitation of Horace's Art of 
Poetry. With some Letters to Dr. Lister, and others: 
Occasion'd principally by the Title of a Book publish'd 
by the Doctor, being the Works of Apicius Coelius, 
Concerning the Soups and Sauces of the Antients. 



143 

With an Extract of the greatest Curiosities contain'd in 
that Book. To which is added, Horace's Art of Poetry, 
in Latin. By the Author of the Journey to London. 
Humbly inscrib'd to the Honourable Beef Steak Club. 

London: Printed for Bernard Lintott at the Cross-Keys be- 
tween the two Temple Gates in Fleet-street. No date, but about 
1708. 8vo, old calf. Titles, and Publisher to the Reader, 4 
leaves + pp. 160. 

HOWAED, HENEY. 

England's IS'ewest way in all sorts of Cookery, Pastry, 
And All Pickles that are fit to be Used. Adorn'd 
with Copper Plates, setting forth the Manner of placing 
Dishes upon Tables; and the Newest Fashions of 
Mince-Pies. By Henry Howard, Free Cook of Lon- 
don, and late Cook to his Grace the Duke of Ormond, 
and since to the Earl of Salisbury, and Earl of Winchel- 
sea. Likewise the best Receipts for making Cakes, 
Mackroons, Biskets, Ginger-bread, French-bread etc. 
The Second Edition with Additions and Amendments. 

London, Printed for and Sold by Chr. Coningsby, at the Irik- 
bottle against Clifford'' s-Inn Back- Gate, in Fetter- Lane, Fleet- 
street. 1708. 8vo, old calf. Title, To the Reader, and Table, 
8 leaves + pp. 156 + Publisher's Advertisement, 2 leaves. 



144 

LAMB, PATKICK. 

Eoyal Cookery : Or The Complete Court-Cook, 

Title page missing, but Advertisement at end explains it was 
printed far and sold by Maurice Atkins, at the Golden-Ball in 
S. PaiiPs Church- Yard. 1710. 8vo, old calf. Beginning im- 
perfect. Pp. 127 + Bills of Fare, Publisher's Advertisement, 
8 leaves. 22 plates, engraved on copper. 

LEMEKY, LOUIS. 

New Curiosities in Art and ISTature : or a Collection of 
the most Valuable Secrets in all Arts and Sciences ; As 
appears by the Contents. Composed and Experimented 
by the Sieur Lemery, Apothecary to the French King. 
Translated into English from the Seventh Edition. 
Printed this last Year in French, in which is near one 
half more than any former Edition. Illustrated with 
Cuts. To which is added a Supplement by the Trans- 
lator. 

London : Printed for John King, at the Bible and Crown in 
Little-Britain ; and sold by J. Marphew, near StationersSaM 
1711. 8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, etc., 8 leaves + PP- 354 
+ Index, 7 leaves. 8 engravings on copper. On inside of 
cover, the book-plate of "William Bowen." On fly-leaf, the 
inscription, " To Mrs PenneU from A. S. Hartrick." 



14>5 

LEMEEY, LOUIS. 

A Treatise of All Sorts of Foods. (See French Title.) 
Translated by D. Hay, M. D. To which is added, An 
Introduction treating of Foods in general: A Table of 
the Chapters, and an Alphabetical Index. A Work of 
universal Use to all who are inclin'd to know the good 
or bad Quahties of what they eat or drink. 

London: Printed for T. Osborne, in Gray's-Inn. 1745. 8vo, 
old calf. Frontispiece, engraviiig on copper. Frontispiece, 
Title, Preface, etc., pp. xii + pp. 372 + Index, 12 leaves. 

HALL, T. 

The Queen's Eoyal Cookery : Or, Expert and ready Way 
for the Dressing of all Sorts of Flesh, Fowl, Fish: 
Either Bak'd, Boil'd, Eoasted, Stew'd, Fry'd, Broil'd, 
Hash'd, Frigasied, Carbonaded, Forc'd, Collar' d, Sous'd, 
Dry'd, etc. After the Best and Newest Way. With 
then- several Sauses and Salads, etc. by T. Hall, Free 
Cook of London. The Second Edition. 

London: Printed for G. Pates, at the Sun and Pible in Gilt- 
spur- Street in Pye- Corner : And A. Pettesworth, at the Red Lion 
on London Pridge. 1713. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, wood- 
cut, a portrait of Queen Anne above drawings of kitchen, 
bakery, and distillery. Pp. 180. 



146 

EALE, MAEY. 

Mrs Mary Sale's Receipts. Confectioner to her late 

Majesty Queen Anne. 

London : Printed by H. Meere in Black-Fryers, and to he had 
at Mr Cooper'' s at the Three Pidgeons the lower end of Bedford- 
street, near the New Exchange in the Strand. 1718. 8vo, old 
calf. Title and Contents, 4 leaves + PP- 100. 

COLLECTIOI^, A. 

A Collection Of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cook- 
ery, Physick and Surgery; For the Use of all Good 
Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses. By 
several Hands. The Second Edition. 

London, Printed for Mary Kettilhy, and Sold by Richard 
Wil/cin, at the Ki7ig''s Head in St. PauVs Church-Yard. 1719. 
8vo, old calf. Titles and Preface, 7 leaves + pp. 86 + Index 
imperfect. On fly-leaf, the inscription, "Hommage to Auto- 
lycus fr Austin Dobson. 27. VII. '95 " 

E — S — [in later editions, E. Smith]. 
The Compleat Housewife; Or Accomplished Gentle- 
woman's Companion : Being a Collection of upwards of 
Five Hundred of the most approved Receipts in Cook- 
ery, Pastry, Confectionary, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes, 



147 

Creams, Jellies, Made Wines, Cordials. With Copper 
Plates curioiTsly engraven for the regular Disposition or 
Placing the various Dishes and Courses. And Also 
Bills of Fare for every Month in the Year. To which 
is added, A Collection of near Two Hundred Family 
Receipts of Medicines, etc. By E. S. 

Landcm: Printed for J. Pemberton, at the Golden Buck, over- 
against St. DunstarCs Church in Fleet-street. 1727. 8vo, old 
calf. Title, Preface, Bill of Fare, Index, 16 leaves + pp. 326 
+ Publisher's Advertisement, 1 leaf. 6 folded plates, inserted 
at the end. 

SMITH, E. 

The Complete Housewife. . . . Being A Collection of 
upwards of Seven Hundred of the most approved Re- 
ceipts in Cookery, Pastry, Confectionary, Potting, Col- 
laring, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes, Custards, Creams, 
Preserves, Conserves, Syrups, Jellies, Made Wines, Cor- 
dials, Distilhng, Brewing. . . . [As in first edition.] With 
Directions for Marketing. By E. Smith. The Eigh- 
teenth Edition with Additions. 

London : Printed for J. JBuckland, J. and F. Rivington, J. 
Minion, Sawes, Clarke and Collins, W. Johnston, S. Crowder, 
T. Longman, B. Law, T. Lowndes, S. Bladon, W. Nicoll, and 



148 

C. and B. Ware. 1773. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, engrav- 
rag on copper of kitchen by J. June. Title, Preface, etc., 20 
leaves + pp. 400. 4 plates inserted at end. 

I^OTT, JOHN. 

The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary : Or the Ac- 
complish'd Housewives Companion. Containing, 1. the 
choicest Receipts in all the several Branches of Cook- 
ery, etc. etc., etc. The Third Edition with Additions. 
Revised and Recommended by John ISTott, late Cook 
to the Dukes of Somerset, Ormond and Bolton j Lord 
Lansdown and Ashburnham. 

London : Printed by IT. P. for Charles Rivingtcm, at the Bible 
and Crown, in St. PauPs Church-yard. 1727. 8vo, old calf. 
Frontispiece, engraving on copper, allegory of plenty, by 
J. Pine. Pages not numbered. 316 leaves. On inside of 
title-page, the book-plate of " Charles Earl of Ailesbury." 

CARTER, CHARLES. 

The Compleat City and Country Cook : or Accom- 
phsh'd Housewife. Containing, Several Hundred of 
the most approv'd Receipts in Cookery, Confectionary, 
Cordials, Cosmeticks, Jelhes, Pastry, Pickles, Preserv- 
ing, Syrups, English Wines, etc. By Charles Carter, 



r 




149 

Lately Cook to his Grace, the Duke of Argyle, the Earl 
of Pontefract, the Lord Cornwallis, etc. . . . 

London: Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Sitch; and C. 
Davis in Pater-noster Row : T. Green at Charing Cross ; and 
S. Austen in jSt. PauTs Church-yard. 1732. 8vo, old calf. 
Frontispiece, engraving on copper, plan for an " Instalment 
Dinner. A Table for the Ladies in a Horse Shoe Form." 
Title and Preface, pp. viii + pp. 280. 49 plates. 

LADTS COMPANION, THE. 

The Lady's Companion : Or, an infallible Guide to the 
Fair Sex. Containing, Rules, Directions, and Obserya- 
tions, for their Conduct and Behaviour through all 
Ages and Circumstances of Life, as Yirgins, Wives, or 
Widows . . . and above one thousand different Re- 
ceipts in every Kind of Cookery, etc., etc., etc., The 
Second Edition. 

London : Printed for T. Jiead, in DogweU- Court, White Fryers, 
Fleet-Street. 1740. 8vo, old calf. Pp. 694. 10 Woodcuts 
printed with Text. 39 Plates. 

AEI^AUD, JASPER. 

An Alarm to All Persons Touching their Health and 
Lives, etc. etc. By Jasper Arnaud, Sometime past first 



150 

Cook to the late Duke of Orleans, and now for some 
Time Cook in London. 

London : Printed for T. Payne in Bound Court in the Strand, 
opposite York Buildings. 1740. 8vo, half calf. Title, 1 leaf 
+ pp. 24. 

FAMILY MAGAZIO], THE. 

The Family Magazine : In Two Parts. Part I, Con- 
taining Useful Directions in All the Branches of 
House-Keeping and Cookery etc. etc. etc. Now First 
communicated for the Publick Benefit. 

London : Printed for J. Osborn, at the Golden-Ball iti Pater- 
noster-Bow. 1741. 8vo, old calf. Title and Preface, pp. xiv 
+ sub-title, 1 leaf + 324. 6 woodcuts in text. 

PKESENT FOE A SEEYANT MAID, A. 

A Present for a Servant-Maid : Or the Sure Means of 
gaining Love and Esteem, etc. etc. The "Whole calcu- 
lated for making both the Mistress and Maid happy. 

London : Printed and Publishedby T. Gardner at CawleyhJSead, 
without Temple-Bar ; and sold by the Booksellers of Town and 
Country. 1743. 8vo, unbound. Title, Preface, etc., 2 leaves 
+ pp. 76. 




|;;jji|li|iiij:i|H|!j!!|i||:|j!|ri::;,.:-:|jii^^^ 




151 

ADAM'S LUXURY AND EYE'S COOKERY. 

Adam's Luxury, and Eve's Cookery; or the Kitchen- 
Garden display'd. etc. etc. etc. 

London: Printed for R. Bodsley, in Pall MaU ; and Sold by 
M. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-noster Row. 1744. 8vo, old 
calf. Titles and Introduction, pp. xii + pp. 216. 

KIDDER, EDWARD. 

E. Kidder's Receipts of Pastry and Cookery, For the 
Use of his Scholars. Who teaches at his School in 
Queen Street near St. Thomas Apostles. On Mondays, 
Tuesdays & Wednesdays, In the Afternoon. Also on 
Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays, In the Afternoon, at 
his School next to Furnivals Inn in Holborn, Ladies 
may be taught at their own Houses 

No publisher, printer, or date given. Hazlitt says it is earlier 
than Mrs Glasse's book, which was published in 1747. Prob- 
ably about 1740. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, on copper, the 
portrait of Kidder by Eob. Sheppard. The Title, the 42 pages 
of Text, printed on one side only, and the 8 plates are all 
engraved on copper. 

GLASSE, HAIWAH. 

The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy; Which far 

exceeds any Thing of the Kind ever yet PubUshed. 



152 

Containing, I. Of Eoasting, Boiling, &c. II. Of Made- 
Dishes. III. Eead this Chapter, and you will find how 
Expensive a French Cook's Sauce is. lY. To make a 
ISTumber of pretty little Dishes fit for a Supper, or Side- 
Dish, and little Coi'ner-Dishes for a great Table; and 
the rest you have in the Chapter for Lent. Y. To 
dress Fish. YI. Of Soops and Broths. YH. Of Pud- 
dings. YIII. Of Pies. IX. For a Fast-Dinner, a IS'um- 
ber of good Dishes, which you may make use for a 
Table at any other Time. X. Directions for the Sick. 
XI. For Captains of Ships. XII. Of Hog's Puddings, 
Sausages, &c. XIII. To Pot and make Hams, &c. 
XIY. OfPicklmg. XY. Of Making Cakes, (fee. XYI. 
Of Cheesecakes, Creams, Jellies, "Whip Syllabubs, &c. 
XYH. Of Made Wines, Brewing, French Bread, Muf- 
fins, &c. XYHI. Jarring Cherries, and Preserves, &c. 
XIX. To Make Anchovies, Yermicella, Ketchup, Yine- 
gar, and to keep Artichokes, French-Beans, &c. XX. 
Of Distilling. XXI. How to Market, and the Seasons 
of the Year for Butcher's Meat, Poultry, Fish, Herbs, 
Eoots, &c. and Fruit. XXII. A certain Cure for the 
Bite of a Mad Dog. By Dr. Mead. By a Lady. 
First Edition. 



153 

London : Printed for the Author ; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn^s, 
a Cliina-Shop Comer of Fleet-Ditch. 1747. Folio, modern 
morocco. Title, List of Subscribers, and Table, 8 leaves + 
pp. 166. Interleaved with modern paper ; on the first four 
leaves, four newspaper clippings pasted in by G. A. Sala. 
"Written on fly-leaf, " This is a copy of the First Edition of the 
famous Cookery Book written by Mrs Hannah Glasse (the 
authorship of which was erroneously ascribed by Dr. Johnson 
— see BosweU's Life — to Dr. Hill) Mrs Glasse, however, 
was a real personage ' Habit Maker to the Royal Family ' and 
lived in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury — Observe in the 
list of Subscribers the name of Mr Glasse, attorney at law, 
and Mrs Glasse, Carey St. These were probably of close kin- 
dred to Hannah. Subsequent editions bear on the title page 
a fac-sinule of H. G.'s autograph. There are (July 1876) only 
Four Copies of this First Edition (a ' pot ' folio) known to be in 
existence, viz: One in the Library of the British Museum — 
One in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. One in the possession 
of the Rev. Richard Hooper of Upton Rectory, Didcot — and 
One (hie inventus adest) belonging to George Augustus Sala. 
46 Mecklenburgh Square. W. C. London." Since the book 
has been mine, I have seen two additional copies advertised 
in booksellers' catalogues. I am afraid Sala had not read his 
" BosweU " very carefully. His reference to Dr. Johnson is 
not quite accurate. 



154 

GLASSE, HANl^AH. 

The Art of Cookery, etc. By a Lady. — The Fourth 

Edition with Additions. 

London, Printed for the Author, and sold at the Bluecoai-Boy, 
near the Royai-Exchange, etc. 1751. 8vo, old calf. Frontis- 
piece, an advertisement for Hannah Glasse, engraved on cop- 
per. The only edition with this plate. Her autograph, H. 
Glasse, on first page. Title, Preface, etc., 11 leaves + PP- 334. 

GLASSE, HANNAH. 

The Art of Cookery, etc. By a Lady. The Eighth 

Edition. 

London: Printed for A. Millar, etc. 1763. 8vo, old calf. 
Her autograph, H. Glasse, on first page. Title, 1 leaf -f- To 
the Eeader, pp. vi + Contents, 12 leaves + pp. 384 + Index, 
12 leaves. 

GLASSE, HANNAH. 

The Art of Cookery, etc. By a Lady The Ninth 

Edition. 

London Printed for A. Millar, etc. 1765. Paging same as in 
Eighth Edition. 

GLASSE, HANNAH. 

The Art of Cookery, etc. By H. Glasse 



THE 



A 



R 



O F 



T 



COOKERY, 

Made PLAIN arid EASY} 

which far exceeds any T h i n c of the Kind ever yet Publiflied. 



CONTAINING. 



I Of Roafting, Boiling, tSc. 

II. Of M. Jc-Uifiies. 

III. Kijd this Ciwptcr, and you will find how 
E.xpcnfive a Frtncb Cook's Sauce is. 

IV. To make a Number of prtity link Dilhcs lit 
for a|S»jppcr, or Side-Dilh, and lictlc Corner^ 
Uilhci lor a g[:--t Tabic; and ihe reft you liavc 
in the CluplLT tur Lent. 

V. Tudrtfs Fi(h. 

VI. or Soops and Brotlu. 
V!l. Of Puiidinjs. 
Vlll. OlPies. 

I A. Fur a Fjft-Dinner, a Number of s;ood Diftic:, 
wAich you inay make ufc for a 1 able at any 
utiicr Ti.iitr. 

X Uuvfllons for the Sick. 

Xr F'»r Cipi.iins o( Ships 

XII. Of IKiSPaJdings. Saufjges, tic. 



Xm. To Pot and Mate Hams, iit. 
XtV. Of P.ckhng. 

XV. Of Making Cakes, Ijfc. 

XVI. Of Chccfecakcs, Creams, Jellies, Whip 
Syllabubs, i3'c. 

XVII. OfMaJe Wines, Brewing, Frinch^mi, 
Muffins, <s!c. 

XVIil. Jarring Cherries, and Prefcrvcs, t^r. 
XIX. lo Maki; Anchovies, Vermicclla, Ketchup, 
"Vini'gjr, and to keep Artichokes, French- 
Bean , tff. 
XX (JfD.dllinj. 

XXI. How (o Market, and the Scafons of the 
Year lorIi'itch:i''. .Meat, Poultry, FiDi, Herbs, 
Root::, L'fc. ait'l Fru't. 

XXII. A certain Cure lot the Biic of a Mad Doe. 
By Dr. Mead. 



BY A LADY. 




.LONDON: 

Printed for the A u t h o r ; and fold at Mrs. AJhhurn'%, a, China-Shop 
Corner of FUet-Ditcb. Mdccxlvii. 
£ Pritc 3 s. Jliich'J, and s J. BnnJ. ] 

'^nd^tW WUi-tona ,a.{iha'hU\e -coiiBoj.near ihe Royal Lxchin^e , 



155 

Edinburgh: Printed for Alexander Bonaldsmi. 1774. 8vo, 
old calf. Title and To the Reader, pp. vi + Contents, 9 leaves 
+ pp. 440 + Index, 12 leaves. 

GLASSE, HANNAH. 

The Art of Cookery, etc.. By Mrs. Glasse. A New 

Edition. 

London : Printed for W. Strahan, etc. 1784. Bvo, old calf. 
Her autograph, H. Glasse, engraved on first page. Title, 1 
leaf + To the Reader, pp. iv + Index and Contents imper- 
fect + pp. 409 + a second Index at end, 13 leaves. 1 fold- 
ing plate. 

GLASSE, HANNAH. 

The Servants' Directory, or House-Keeper's Compan- 
ion. By H. Glass, Author of the Art of Cookery made 
plain and easy. 

London : Printed for the Author ; and sold by W. Johnston in 
LrndgaJte-street ; at Mrs. Wharton''s, the Plue- Coat-Boys near the 
Royal Exchange, etc. 1760, Bvo, old calf. Title and Preface, 
pp. viii + List of Subscribers, 2 leaves + PP- 432. 

GLASSE, HANNAH. 

The Compleat Confectioner: or the Whole Art of Con- 
fectionary Made Plain and Easy, etc., etc. By H. Glasse, 
Author of the Art of Cookery. 



156 

London : Printed: And Sold at Mrs. Ashburner's China Shop, 
the Corner of Fleet Ditch; at Yewd^s Hat Warehouse, near 
Somerset Souse ; at KirKs Toyshop in St. JPaid's Church- 
yard ; at Deard's Toyshop, facing Arlingtmi^ Street, Piccadilly ; 
etc. No date. 8vo, half calf. Her autograph, H. Glasse, en- 
graved as signature to dedication and on first page. Title 
and Dedication, 2 leaves + pp. 304 + Contents, 7 leaves + 
Appendix, pp. 48 + Index, 12 leaves. Written on iiy-leaf : 
" To the Editor of the Times. Friday, October 5, 1866. Sir, 
Your culinary critic is wrong in thinking Mrs. Glasse allied 
to Mrs. Harris. The former lady lived in the flesh in Edin- 
burgh about 1790. She taught cookery to classes of young 
ladies. My mother was a pupil and fondly showed in her 
old age to her children a copy of Glasse's Cookery, with the 
autograph of the authoress, gained as a prize in the School 
of Cookery. This book did contain ' Catch your hare.' I am 
etc. M. D." 



ACCOMPLISH'D HOUSEWIFE, THE. 

The Accomplish'd Housewife; or, the Gentlewoman's 

Companion, etc, etc. 

London : Printed for J. Newiury, cut the Pible and Sun near 
the Chapter- Souse in St. Paul's Church- Yard, and J3. Collins, 
Bookseller, in Salisbury. 1748. 8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, 
and Dedication, 7 leaves + pp. 431 + Index, 6 leaves. 



157 

HAEEISON, SARAH. 

The Housekeeper's Pocket-Book; And Compleat 
Family Cook, etc., etc. By Mrs. Sarah Harrison, of 
Devonshire. The Fourth Edition. 

London: Printed for R. Ware, at the Bible and Sun on Lud- 
gate-SiU. 1748. 8to, old calf. Title and Dedication, pp. iv 
+ Preface and Contents, 2 leaves + pp. 268 + Index and 
Tables, 18 Leaves. I have another edition, without name of 
author or date, but with 1783 printed under the engraved fron- 
tispiece. 

LA CHAPELLE, YINCENT. 

The Modern Cook's, and Complete Housewife's Com- 
panion, etc., etc. By Mr. Yincent La Chapelle. The 
Fourth Edition. 

London : Printed for P. Manhy and H. S. Cox on Ludgate 
HiU. 1751. 8vo, old calf. Title and Dedication, 2 leaves + 
Preface and Contents, pp. xl + pp. 432. At end, 6 folding 
plates. 

CLELAiro, ELIZABETH. 

A New and Easy Method of Cookery, etc., etc. By 

Ehzabeth Cleland. The Second Edition. 

Edinburgh: Printed by C. Wright and Company : And sold at 
their Printing-house in Craig''s Close, and by the Booksellers in 



158 

Town. 1759. 8vo, in Boards. Title and Contents, 7 leaves 
+ pp. 232. 

YEEEAL, WILLIAM. 

A Complete System of Cookery, etc., etc. By William 
Yerral, Master of the White-Hart Inn in Lewes, Sus- 
sex. 

London, Printed for the Author, and sold by him; As also by 
Edward Verral Bookseller, in Lewes : And by John Itivington 
in St. Paul's Church- Yard, London. 1759. 8vo, old calf. 
Title and Contents, 7 leaves + Preface, pp. xxxiii + pp. 240. 
On inside of cover, book plate of " John Urry." Written on 
fly-leaf, "Mrs Urry, 1st November 1775." 

PKICE, ELIZABETH. 

The New Book of Cookery ; or Every Woman a per- 
fect Cook, etc., etc. By Mrs Eliz. Price of Berkeley 
Square. A JSTew Edition. 

London : Printed for the Authoress, and sold by Alex Hogg. 
No date — probably between 1760 and 1770. 8vo, old calf. 
Title and Preface, 2 leaves +pp. 114 + Index, 1 leaf. Bound 
up with it, Mrs. Price's " New Universal and Complete Con- 
fectioner." Frontispiece, engraving on copper. Title, Pre- 
face, Contents, pp. viii + pp. 371 + Alex Hogg's Catalogue, 
pp. 12. 



159 

TOWN AISTD COUNTRY COOK, THE. 

The Town and Country Cook; or Young Woman's 

Best Guide, in the Whole Art of Cookery, etc., etc. 

London: Printed for W. Lane, Leadenhall Street, and sold by 
aU other Booksellers. No date. Probably between 1760 and 
1770. 12mo, in boards. Frontispiece, engraving on copper 
of a kitchen. Title, 1 leaf + pp. 84 

GELI^EOY, WILLIAM. 

The London Cook, or The Whole Art of Cookery made 
easy and familiar, etc., etc. By William Gelleroy, Late 
Cook to her Grace the Dutchess of Argyle. And now 
to the Right Hon. Sir Samuel Fludger, Bart. Lord 
Mayor of the City of London. 

London: Printed for S. Crowder and Co.atthe LooTcing Glass: 
J. Coote, at the Eing's Arms, in Pater-noster Row ; and J. 
Fletcher, St. PavTs Church- Yard. 1762. 8vo, old calf. Title 
and To the Reader, pp. iv + Menus and Contents, 9 leaves + 
pp. 486 + Publisher's advertisement, 1 leaf. 1 folding plate. 

MOXON, ELIZABETH. 

English Housewifery, Exemplified in Above Four Hun- 
dred and Fifty Receipts, Giving Directions in Most 
Parts of Cookery, etc., etc. By Elizabeth Moxon. The 
Ninth Edition, Corrected. 



160 

Leedes : Printed by Griffith Wright, for George Copperthwaite, 
Bookseller in Leedes ; and sold by Mr. JB. Dod, JBooksdler in 
Aoe-Mary Lane, etc. 1764. 8vo, vellum. Beginning imper- 
fect + pp. 203 + Supplement, pp. 25 + Sub-title, Bills of 
Fare, Index, 12 leaves. 8 woodcuts. On inserted leaf, the 
inscription : " Receipts by Elizabeth Moxon, To Mrs J. Pen- 
neU with kindest regards from Charles G. Leland, Florence. 
Feb. 17. 1901." 

MOXON, ELIZABETH. 

English Housewifery, etc. The Thirteenth Edition, 
Corrected. 

London : printed for W. Osborne, etc. 1789. Svo, old calf. 
Title, Preface, etc., pp. viii + pp. 203 + Supplement, pp. 33 
+ Bills of Fare, etc., 11 leaves. 6 Wood-engravings. 

SHACKLEFOED, AISTN. 

The Modern Art of Cookery Improved, etc., etc. By 

Mrs. Ann Shackleford of Winchester. 

London : Printed for J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. 
PauVs Church Yard; and F. Newbery, Pater-noster-R<m. 
1767. Title, Preface, Preliminary, pp. xxiv -\- pp. 284 + 
Index, 7 leaves. 



161 

KAFFALD, ELIZABETH. 

The Experienced English House-keeper, For the Use 
and Ease of Ladies, House-keepers, Cooks, etc., etc., 
etc. By Elizabeth Eaffald. 

Manchester : Printed by J. Harrop for the Author, and sold by 
Messrs. Fletcher and Anderson, in St. PauPs Church- Yard, 
London ; and by Eliz. Eaffald, Confectioner, near the Exchange, 
Manchester. 1769. 8vo, old calf. Her autograph, Eliz. Raf- 
fald, on first page. Title and Dedication, 2 leaves + To the 
Reader, pp. Ill + pp. 362 + Index, pp. xi. 2 folding plates. 

EAFFALD, ELIZABETH. 

The Experienced English Housekeeper, etc. The 

Fourth Edition. 

London: Printed for the Author, and sold by R. Baldwin, JVb. 
47, in Pater-noster-Pow 1775. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, 
portrait of Mrs. Raffald, engraved on copper. Her autograph, 
Eliz Raffald, on first page. Title and Dedication, 2 leaves 
+ Preface, pp. Ill + pp. 382 + Index, 7 leaves. 3 folding 
plates. 

MASON, CHAELOTTE. 

The Lady's Assistant, etc., etc. Published from the 
Manuscript Collection of Mrs. Charlotte Mason, A Pro- 



162 

fessed Housekeeper, who had upwards of Thirty Years' 
Experience in Families of the first Fashion. 

London : Printed for J. Walter, at Homer's Head, Charing Cross. 
1775. 8vo, old calf. Titles and Introduction, pp. vi + Ad- 
vertisement, 1 leaf + pp. 471 + Index, 10 leaves. 

PEGGE, SAMUEL. 

The Forme of Cury, A Roll of Ancient English Cook- 
ery, Compiled, about A. D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks 
of King Richard II, Presented afterwards to Queen 
Elizabeth, by Edward Lord Stafford, And now in the 
Possession of Gustavus Brander, Esq., etc. Edited by 
Dr. Pegge. 

London : Printed by J. Nichols, Printer to the Society of Anti- 
quaries. 1780. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, portrait of 
Dr. Pegge, engraved on copper. Title and Preliminary, pp. 
xxxvi + pp. 188. On inside of cover, book plate of "John 
Wingfield Larking." 

HONOURS OF THE TABLE, THE. 

The Honours of the Table, or Rules for Behaviour 
During Meals, etc., etc. By the Author of Principles 
of Politeness, etc. 



( 63 ) 



_ 



a Hare 




Thefe fkewers are feldom removed till the 
hare is cut up. 

Now, there are two ways of cutting It 
up. The genteeleft, beft and readieft way, 
is as above defcribed, to put in the point 
of the knife at ^, and cut it through all 

the 



163 

Lwhdon : Printed for the Author at the Literary Press, No. 14, 
Ped-JOion- Street, Clerkenwell, and may he had of U. P. Symonds, 
Paternoster- Pow, and all Pooksellers in Town and Country. 
1788. 12mo, half calf. Pp. 120. With wood-engravings hy 
John Bewick. On inside of cover, card of Capt. R. Williams, 
Royal Navy. On fly-leaf, book plate of "Walter Besant, 
M. A." 

HONOUES OF THE TABLE, THE. 

The Honours of the Table, etc. The Second Edition. 
London : The same. 1791. 

HONOURS OF THE TABLE, THE. 

The Honours of the Table, etc. An L-ish Edition. 

Dublin : Printed by W. Stealer, No. 28, Dame-street. 1791. 
The same. Pp.126. 

COLE, MAEY. 

The Lady's Complete Guide, or Cookery and Confec- 
tionary in all their Branches, etc., etc. By Mrs. Mary 
Cole, Cook to the Right Hon. the Earl of Drogheda. 

Zondon: Printed for G. Kearsley, No. Jfi Fleet- Street. 1789. 
8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, etc., pp. xx -|- Contents, xxvii 
+ pp. 564. 



164. 

LADIES' LIBEAEY, THE. 

The Ladies' Library : or Encyclopedia of Female Know- 
ledge, etc. 

London: Printed for J. Midgway, JVb. 1 York Street, St. 
James's Square. 1790. 8vo, old calf. 2 vols. Vol. I : Fron- 
tispiece, engraving of " Jno Perkins, Many Tears Cook in the 
Families of Earl Gower and Lord Melbourn." Title and Pre- 
face, pp. XV + pp. 407. 3 plates. Vol. II : Frontispiece, a 
second, quite different portrait of "Mr. Perkins, Cook." 
Title, lleaf + pp. 215. 

OKDINAKCES AND REGULATIONS. 

A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the 
Government of the Royal Household, Made in Divers 
Reigns. From King Edward III. to King William and 
Queen Mary. Also Receipts in Ancient Cookery. 

London: Printed for the Society of Antiquaries by John 
Nichols : Sold by Messieurs White and Son ; Hobson ; Leigh 
and Sotheby ; Browne ; and EgertorHs. 1790. 4to, calf. On 
inside of cover, book-plate of " Sir Charles Cockerell Bart." 
Title and Preliminary, pp. xxii+ PP- 476. 

WARNER, THE REY. RICHARD. 

Antiquitates Culinarise or Curious Tracts relating to the 
Culinary affairs of the Old English. With a preliminary 



165 

discourse, !N"otes and Elustrations by the Reverend 
Richard Warner, of Sway near Lyniington, Hants. 

London : Printed for a. Blamire, Strand. 1791. Folio, calf. 
The Title-page is engraved on copper. Preliminary Discourse, 
pp. Ix + pp. 137- 2 plates. 

ABBOT, ROBERT. 

The Housekeeper's Valuable Present: or Lady's Closet 
Companion, etc., etc. By Robert Abbot, Late Appren- 
tice to Messrs I^egri & Guuter, Confectioners, in Berke- 
ley Square. 

London. Printed for the Author ; And sold by C. Cooke, -No. 
17, Pater-noster Row ; and aM other Pooksellers in Town and 
Country. No date. Probably 1790 or 1791. Written on inside 
of cover, " Anne Jones, Dec. 18, 1791." 12mo, old calf. Title, 
Preface, Contents, pp. xii + pp. 100. 

COLLmGWOOD AND WOOLLAMS. 

The Universal Cook, and City and Country House- 
keeper, etc., etc. By Francis ColUngwood, and John 
WooUams, Principal Cooks at the Crown and Anchor 
Tavern in the Strand, Late from the London Tavern. 

Lmdon : Printed by B. Noble, for J. Scatcherd and J. Whit- 
aker. No. 12, Ave- Maria^ Lane. 1792. 8vo, old calf. Frontis- 



166 

piece, engraving on copper, portraits of the two authors. Title, 
Preface, etc., 13 leaves + pp. 451. 12 plates. 

FKENCH FAMILY COOK, THE. 

The French Family Cook : Being A complete System 
of French Cookery, etc., etc. Translated from the 
French. 

London : Printed for J. Bell, No. 148, Oxford Street, nearly 
opposite Mw Bond Street. 1793. 8vo, calf. Title, BiLLs of 
Fare, 4 leaves + Contents, pp. xxiv + pp. 342 + Publisher's 
Advertisement, 1 leaf. 

BEIGGS, EICHAED. 

The English Art of Cookery, According to the Present 
Practice ; Being a Complete Guide to all Housekeepers, 
etc., etc. By Richard Briggs, Many Years Cook at the 
"White-Hart Tavern, Holborn, Temple Coffee-House, 
and other Taverns in London. Third Edition. 

London : Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, Pater-Noster- 
Pow. 1794. 8vo, old calf. Title and To the Reader, pp. iv 
+ Contents, pp. xx + pp. 564. 12 plates. 

MARTIN, SARAH. 

The New Experienced English-Housekeeper, For the 



167 

Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks, etc. 
Written Purely From Her Own Practice. By Mrs 
Sarah Martin, Many Years Housekeeper to the late 
Freeman Bower Esq. of Bawtry. 

Doticaster : Printed for the Authoress by D. Boys. And Sold 
hy F. & C. Rivingtoii, St. PauVs Church- Yard., London. 1795. 
8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, List of Subscribers, 10 leaves + 
pp. 173 + Index, 9 leaves. On fly-leaf is written, " The origi- 
nal Edition — very scarce H. B. ;" and, below, "The above, 
in pencil, was written by Henry Bower Esq., my uncle : son of 
Freeman Bower Esq. of Bawtry, to whom the Book is dedi- 
cated by the author of it, his own Housekeeper. J. E. Jack- 
son, Leigh, Delamere, Chippenham, Wilts. April 1867 ; " and, 
in pencU, on inside of cover, " Canon Jackson's copy." 

BEADLET, MAETHA. 

The British Housewife: or the Cook, Housekeeper's 

and Gardiner's Companion, etc., etc. By Mrs Martha 

Bradley, late of Bath: Beingthe Result of upwards of 

Thirty Years Experience. 

London : Printed for S. Crowder and H. Woodgate, at the 
Golden Bell in Paternoster Row. No date, probably at the 
very end of the eighteenth century. 8vo, old calf. Pp. 752. 



168 
SPANISH 

ALTIMIEAS, JUAN. 

Nuevo Arte de Cocina, Sacado de la Escuela de la Ex- 
periencia Economica. Su Autor Juan Altimiras. Dedi- 
cale a San Diego de Alcala. 

En Madrid: For Antonio Perez de Soto. Ano de 1760. 12mo, 
old vellum. Title, Dedication, and Preliminary, 15 leaves + 
pp. 152. 1 Ulustration, woodcut, showing kitchen utensils. 

MONTINO, FEANCISCO MAETINEZ. 

Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Yizcocheria, y Conserveria, 
Compuesto por Francisco Martinez Montino, Cocinero 
Mayor del Rey. Decimaquinta Impresion. 

Ml Madrid: en la Imprenta de Don Joseph Dohlado. Ano de 
[date blotted — 1757 or 1771?]. 12mo, paper covers. Title, 
Preface, etc., 4 leaves + pp. 480. 

MATA, JUAN DE LA. 

Arte de Eeposteria, en que ee Contiene Todo Genero 
de Hacer Dulces Secas, y en Liquido, Yizcochos, Tur- 
rones, Natas : Bebidas Heladas de Todos Generos, Ro- 
eolis, Mistelas, etc. Con una Breve Instruccion para 
conocer las Frutas, y servirlas Crudas. Y Diez Mesas 



ARTE 
DE COCINA, 

PASTELERIA, 

VIZCOCHERIA, 
Y CONSERVERIA, 

COMPUEStO POR FRANCISCO 

Martinez Montlno , Cocinero Mayor 
del Rey. 

DECIMAQUINTA IMPRESION. 



CON LICENCIA. 



En Madrid : en la Imprenra de Do^ Joseph 
DoBLADO. Ano de 



169 

con eu Explicacion. Su autor Juan de la Mata, Eepos- 
tero en esta Corte, natural del Lugar de Matalavilla, 
Concejo del Sil de Arriba, Montanas, y Keyno de Leon, 
Obispado de Oviedo. 

En Madrid: en la Oficina de Ramon Ruiz. 1791. 4to, old 
vellum. Title and Preliminary, 4 leaves + pp. 232. 

LEKA, CECILIO GAECIA DE LA. 

Disertacion en Eecomendacion y Defensa del Famoso 
Yino Malagiieno Pero Ximen y Modo de Formarlo. 
Dedicala A La M. I. Y. Antigua Hermandad de Yine- 
ros de Malaga. D. Cecilio Garcia de la Lena, Presbi- 
tero y Yecino de Dicha Ciudad. 

Malaga : Par Luis de Carreras, Impresor de la Dig. Episc, de 
la Sta. Iglesia, de esta M. I. C. y del Rl. Colegio de San Tehno 
en la Plaza. 1792. 4to, old calf. Title, Frontispiece, Dedi- 
cation, pp. xiv + pp. 158. 

Note. I am more than ever conscious of the difficulties of compiUng 
anything like a complete bibUography of my own books, because 
of the important additions made to my collection since my MS. 
■went to press. From Spain, my husband has just brought me 
several old volumes to strengthen my Spanish section, which, I 
admit, was weak enough. I have now three more editions of the 



170 

Nuevo Arte de Cocina by Juan Altimiras : one, the oldest, published 
at Barcelona in 1758, one published in the same town but without 
a date, and one issued from a Madrid publishing house, as late as 
1817. I have two more editions of the Arte de Cocina by Fran- 
cisco Martinez Montino : one, vellum- covered, published at Bar- 
celona in 1763, and one in 1823. I have another and very much 
earlier Arte de Beposteria by Juan de la Mata, Madrid, 1747. And 
I can also boast a copy of the curious Arte Cisoria, O Tratado del 
Arte del Cortar del Cuchillo, by the Marques de Viliena, an im- 
mensely interesting old 15th century treatise, pubUshed in 1766, 
from the original in the Royal Library of the Escorial ; and a 
hardly less interesting Tratado de Los Usos, Abusos, Propiedes, y 
Virtudes del Tabaco, Cafe, Te, y Chocolate, edited from various 
sources by Don Antonio Lavedan, and published at Madrid in 
1796 — a book that even M. Vicaire does not seem to know any- 
thing about. 

While I am in the way of boasting, I think I shall be found more 
than justified if I record the most precious, bibUographically, of all 
my recent acquisitions — a copy of Platiaa's De Honesta Voluptate, 
the earUest of aU printed Cookery Books that I, at least, know 
anything about. Mine is not the first edition, which is reserved 
only for the Rothschilds among collectors, but it is fairly early — 
1503 — in beautiful condition, with the date given at the end, and 
spaces left for the capitals almost throughout. I count myself 
fortunate, too, in a delightful little copy of Baldassare Pisanelli's 
Trattato della Natura de Cibi, et del Bere; Venice, 1601, in old 



171 

limp vellum covers; while to the kindness of a friend — kind- 
ness for which thanks are a poor return — I owe a copy of L'Arte 
di Ben Cucinare, by Bartolomeo Stefani, Bologna, 1687. 
Then, I am tempted to add an American section, three or four 
irresistible little American Cookery Books having come into my 
possession of late: among them an American edition of Mrs. 
Glasse, which, I believe, was absolutely unknown until a generous 
sympathizer in Baltimore found it in his own library and sent it 
to me — an imprecedented act of generosity on the part of an abso- 
lute stranger. But to write of all these treasures would be to 
rewrite my book. By this unworthy reference to them, I hope at 
least to give a new proof of the fact that a collection of Cookery 
Books is not made in a day. But if it were, where would be the 
pleasure ? 



THEEE HUNBEED AND THIRTY COPIES 

PRINTED AT 

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS 

CAMBRIDGE 

IN THE MONTH OE SEPTEMBER 

MDCCCCIII 

or WHICH THIS IS